Clear-Cut Murder

Frank Carver & Ginny Trask Mysteries #2

by Lee Wallingford

Frank Carver and Ginny Trask travel to the town of Coffee Creek, where they become involved in a confrontation between environmental activists and developers that turns deadly

Genres: Mystery

219 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Lee Wallingford is an elementary school librarian and teacher. She lives in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, but spent six years with the Forest Service in the Oregon Coast Range, where, like her heroine Ginny Trask, she spent many days fighting wildfires.-- book jacket

Reviews

[Rachel N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frank Carver is a enforcement officer for the Forest Service, along with Ginny Trask, also a Forest Service employee though her job isn't clearly defined, he is assigned to help protect Ward Tomasovic. Ward is from the local area, the fictional Coffee Creek, Oregon, and he is giving a speech on how logging companies and environmentalists can work together. After the speech Ward is killed and Frank and Ginny are assigned to investigate his death as the local sheriff is involved with arresting the governors son for a fatal car accident.

The book is a bit dated, it was written in 1993. Despite the title the book doesn't deal a lot with environmental issues connected to logging. I wonder if the author was in the Forest Service because there is a lot of information about how the Forest Service is run, there is no authors blurb on my copy of the book. The book ends rather abruptly which was annoying after waiting quite awhile for anything to happen in the story.

[Georgene · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is an o.k. murder mystery. Not exciting, but well put together.

I did find this book a bit disorienting. It is set in the Oregon Coast Range in a logging area. Most of the local place names are made up. Trying to figure out exactly where the location of the story was difficult and finally I gave up.