Never sleep with someone who has more problems than you.
Well, the way I heard it originally was never sleep with
someone more screwed up than you. (Explains my love life in
my early twenties. Or lack thereof.) In FINAL NOTICE, Harry
Stoner seemed to learn that lesson. Unfortunately, his
girlfriend moved to California while Jon Valin wasn't
looking. Instead, he ends up with Sarah Lovingwell, the
daughter of his client, Professor Daryl Lovingwell. Prof.
Lovingwell teaches physics at the University of Cincinnati
(before Bob Huggins took over) and works at a nearby partical
accelerator. Daryl wants Harry to find a letter of his that
was stolen from his safe. He says even his daughter, who has
fallen in communists, is a suspect. You have to remember the
book came out in 1981, as the Cold War started careening
toward its eventual end. Professor Lovingwell is killed
shortly thereafter.
Sarah at first resists having Stoner look into his death,
then asks him to press on. The suspects are many. A coworker
who may or may not work for the Soviets. Several of Sarah's
radical friends, including a disgruntled ex-boyfriend. A
local drug dealer. The killer, it turns out, is under Harry's
nose.
Harry has to kill in this one. In the previous two novels, he
shot in self-defense. This time, he shoots one of the thugs
using Sarah's radical group as a front on a corner of William
Howard Taft, one of the busiest streets in Cincinnati. The
shooting is in cold blood this time. You can't argue with
Harry's reasons, but the only thing letting him get away with
it is the man killed a cop.
Of the first three novels, DEAD LETTER is probably the most
violent. Even the police get in on the act and smack Harry
around in an interrogation. When the Homicide sergeant is
done, he tells Harry it's just business. (And here you
thought on the mob said that.)
Valin has also eased up on his habit of rearranging
Cincinnati into his own image. In THE LIME PIT, it drove me
insane that he put the bus terminal on the opposite side of
downtown (where the convention center is) or moved a building
I used to work in (and still visit frequently) one block
north. In DEAD LETTER, he only takes liberties with
neigboring Clermont County, placing the particle accelerator
on a wooded hill that sits right about where my wife works.
At the time, Clermont was a blank canvass, very little
development, the boonies. Now, you have small towns like
Williamsburg and Mt. Orab wondering when they'll inevitably
get sucked into Cincinnati's mass of suburbs.
Throughout the late eighties and early nineties, Valin was a
go-to guy for PI fiction. This novel, I believe, is where he
got his cred as a crime writer. Certainly, his first two
books were very good, but he hit his stride in DEAD
LETTER.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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