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Insect sleuths request canine assistance
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Published: December 21, 2008
LESS THAN DEAD. By Tim Downs. Thomas Nelson. 363 pages. $22.99
The bug man is back, and better than ever! The title of this book is less than Dead, and, as I wrote in my review of Tim Downs' last book, first the Dead, that is not a typo. And since I can find no other reason for using this device in his "bug man" books, I must assume it is no more than an eye-catching marketing ploy -- but that's not what we're here to discuss.
Nick Polchak uses his job as a professor at N.C. State University in Raleigh to pay the bills, but his passion is forensic entomology. He determines facts about corpses by analyzing the insects that devour them.
In this installment, Nick is called to Endor, Va., to ascertain the circumstances surrounding a forgotten graveyard that is discovered when a wealthy senator's construction project uncovers a few graves, some of which have had corpses added to them over many years.
When the government's cadaver dog and its trainer prove ineffectual, a local deputy suggests that Nick enlist the aid of the Witch of Endor. Residents of this mountain community are unanimous in agreement that the witch can talk to animals and put hexes on anyone who displeases her. The deputy says that she can even raise the dead.
Of course, Nick, a man of science, finds these beliefs to be ludicrous, but for lack of a better plan he ignores the witch's "No Trespassing" signs, he ignores the spells implied by the dead forest creatures ritually displayed as warnings, he scales the fence of her mountaintop hideaway and he creeps into the witch's lair during -- of all times -- the night of the full moon. What transpires next, I cannot tell. So let's move on.
Nick's efforts put him into contact with a local dog and trainer with higher pedigrees than the government duo, and he soon has an entire graveyard outlined. An anthropologist joins the team, and the digging begins. Meanwhile, the senator and his seductive and conniving wife pull strings to impede Nick's work. Because it is halting work on the senator's massive construction project, the graveyard is costing him enormous sums of money, but the senator's rumored bid for the White House might also figure in. The fact that his cunning wife was born in Endor also raises the possibility that skeletons might exist in some nearby closets as well as in the landscape. Nick, never one for protocol, enlarges his search parameters to include investigations of these two even as his budding relationship with the Witch of Endor begins to bloom into something more -- shall we say -- enchanting?
Writing about Tim Downs' previous book, I declared a particular scene to be "…the most effective written comedy I've seen in a long time." I can say it no more succinctly now. less than Dead has it all: incomparably hilarious writing, a masterfully intriguing plot, and a feel-good ending that is sure to leave readers with a glow.
■ Steven Beach is a writer who lives in Lawsonville.
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