Farm Boy

Skedgell's second mystery (The Days of the Waxing Moon) is in the tradition of fictions set in small rural towns where seemingly unruffled serenity cloaks secrets lurid beyond belief. What awful knowledge of what appalling events so perturbs adolescent Allison that her desperate mother places her in the care of psychiatrist Lucille Esker? When farm-boy Billy, suspected of patricide though his younger brother is serving time for the crime, is killed, Lucille finds herself ensnared in the maze of evil that produced Billy's murder. Ensuing events involve her in friendly cooperation, alternating with antagonistic rivalry, with her state-trooper ex-husband. Rape, blackmail, and blue movies are only a few of the constituent elements of this whodunit, which seems almost a parody of the genre. Some measure of suspense props the tale upright and inching forward against the restraints of didactic exposition and wooden dialogue. December 26