Ted Wood was born in England, but, after a stint of military
duty including combat service in Korea, he emigrated to
Canada, where he joined the Toronto Police, serving for
several years.
After leaving law enforcement, he spent several years in
various jobs, including advertising copy writer
(shades of Hammett), when he got the idea of writing a series
of police novels. He felt his own experience would no longer
suit a series with a metropolitan setting, since police work
had gotten so much more technical. Instead, he did a bit of
research and found a small rsort town in Ontario that still
had a one-man police force. He decided that this kind of
low-tech, rural policing would be closer to the kind of work
he did decades earlier, and created Reid Bennett, the tough
but compassionate police chief of Murphy's Harbor (Wood's
fictional counterpart to the real-life resort town), whose
entire force consists of him and his trained German Shepherd,
Sam. Just as Wood was a Korean vet, he made Bennett a Viet
Nam vet who, while American kids were going north to avoid
the draft, went south to join the Marines. Bennett's USMC
combat experience gives some credibility to scenes in which
he single-handedly cleans the clocks of multiple adversaries
(which, as the only cop in town, he is occasionally called up
to do).
There've been 10 Bennett books, beginning with DEAD IN THE
WATER in 1983 and ending with A CLEAN KILL in 1995. Wood's
personal favorite, reportedly, is the second book in the
series MURDER ON ICE (aka THE KILLING COLD). Under the
pseudonym of "Jack Barnao," Wood's also written a trilogy of
PI novels featuring an ex-SAS soldier turned professional
bodyguard.
Regretfully, Wood's apparently retired from mystery-writing
as is now running a B&B with his wife.
I've always regarded the Bennett novels as my favorite rural
police procedurals, and every time I read one I come away
with the feeling that being the chief of a one-cop department
is the best possible job in law enforcement. Highly
recommeneded.
JIM DOHERTY
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