Snowjob

Reid Bennett #9

by Ted Wood

While in Vermont ski country, Reid Bennett helps his old Marine buddy, Doug Ford, who is charged with the murder of a ski-resort bookkeeper. By the author of On the Inside.

Genres: Mystery

262 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Born Edward John Wood in Shoreham, Sussex, England, he lived in London until the outbreak of the Second World War. Enforced relocation to rural Worcestershire, which left him with a lifelong love of the countryside, was followed by service in RAF Coastal Command. In 1954 he immigrated to Canada, where he was a policeman in Toronto for three years. In 1957 he joined MacLaren Advertising as a copywriter, eventually becoming a creative director. He now lives in Whitby, Ontario.

While employment in law enforcement and advertising provided food and shelter for his growing family, Wood found time to write and sell short stories to Canadian and American magazines and to write television plays; he also collaborated on the musical comedy Mister Scrooge, which was produced in Toronto and on cbc television. In 1974 he published a collection of Chekhovian short stories, Somebody Else's Summer.

His Dead in the Water (1984) won the Scribner's Crime Novel Award, and publication in the USA and Canada. The book featured a small-town policeman, Reid Bennett, and his dog Sam—the entire law enforcement needs of Murphy's Harbour, a fictional resort community in the Muskoka region of Ontario. Bennett's and Sam's popularity was enough to extend the series though Murder on Ice (1984) to its current tenth title, A Clean Kill (1995), and to have the books also published in England and in many translations. A second series featuring a peripatetic Toronto-based bodyguard, John Locke, has thus far extended to three titles: Hammerlocke (1986), Lockestep (1987) and Timelocke (1991).

Source: Ted Wood Biography - (b. 1931), Mister Scrooge, Somebody else's summer, Dead in the water

Librarian Note: The John Locke series is published under the pseudonym Jack Barnao.

Reviews

[Kevintipple]

Reid Bennet is always willing to go help a friend. In this eighth book of the series titled, Snowjob, that willingness takes him to Chambers, Vermont. While Reid Bennett was an odd man out because of his history when he arrived in Murphy’s Harbour, Doug Ford is going to always be the odd man out on his local police force because he is African American.

He also is odd man out because he sits in the local jail accused of the murder Cindy Laver. She was the bookkeeper at the local ski resort. Not only was he there in her apartment the night she died, fifty thousand dollars she was to take to the bank and deposit was also found in the back of his car. Then there is the fact that nearly everyone around knew they were having an affair before Ford killed her.

While the evidence points to Ford being a killer, Ford swears he didn’t do it. Reid served with Ford in Vietnam and there is an unshakable bond there. A bond that will be tested as Reid investigates and learns what is actually going on a case that leads from small town murder to big time issues.

Ninth in the series, Snowjob is another very good installment in a very good series. Reid and his personal life continues to evolve and strengthen as he puts the past behind him. At the same time, as always, there is plenty of mystery and action to keep the pages turning. The result is another very good read making Snowjob, as are the other books in the series, highly recommended.


Snowjob
Ted Wood
Charles Scribner’s Sons
1993
ISBN# 0-684-19563-1
Hardback (also available in paperback and digital formats)
262 Pages



I got to read this one by way of an Interlibrary Loan from the Beaumont Public Library in Beaumont, Texas.



Kevin R. Tipple ©2018
https://kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/

[Richard Schwindt]

I picked up this paperback, never having read Ted Wood before, prior to a beach vacation. I did not know what to expect but found myself absorbed in a solid storyline, featuring interesting characters and nicely sustained tension. Reid Bennet is a Canadian lawman, part of series, who solves crimes with the help of his uber-pooch, Sam. In this installment he is over the border, at a ski town in Vermont, helping a former military buddy and fellow cop who has been accused of murder. Like every small town in fiction there is more than meets the eye but Reid isn’t taking strong hints (and worse) to leave town before he discovers the truth. If you are looking for an atmospheric mystery written in clean prose you might want to give this series a look. Highly recommended with a beer by the fire.

[Tammy]

Another of the items on the home bookshelf that I got done while visiting JOMO. OK, again it seemed to get a little crazy at the end, but I enjoyed his dog partner.