Weekly Reader: Indecent Exposure (A Father Hardy Alaskan Mystery Book 1) by Jonathan Thomas Stratman; Alaskan Setting is Highlight Of Mystery About Blackmail and Murder

 

Weekly Reader: Indecent Exposure (A Father Hardy Alaskan Mystery Book 1) by Jonathan Thomas Stratman; Alaskan Setting is Highlight Of Mystery About Blackmail and Murder

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Jonathan Thomas Stratman's Indecent Exposure is one of those types of murder mystery where the setting is so intrinsic to the plot that it can't be set anywhere else. In this case, the mystery is set in Alaska in 1955 and time and place play a large part in the events that unfold.

In the tiny town of Chandelar, Alaska, Episcopalian priest Father Hardy is called by two Athabascan men to help them move a deceased body. The body belongs to the cleverly named Frankie Slick, a local gambler, loan shark, con man, and generally no good guy. He has been missing for over a month but since he has made so many enemies around town and few friends, no one really bothered to look until now. It's not the elements that got Frankie. Instead, to quote the old detective tv shows, he came down with an unexpected case of murder.

Fr. Hardy has to wade through the hearty elements, the freezing cold, and a small town full of suspects to find out who Frankie's murderer was. This is complicated that many would love to take credit for this murder and are surprisingly okay with a murdered body and a potential killer in their midst.

The Alaskan setting really lends itself to suspense and mystery in this book. The time period is before Alaska became the 49th state. This huge chunk of cold snowy landscape is sandwiched between Russia and Canada but is considered a U.S. territory, so it's practically a law into itself. There is something of the Wild West  mentality in the characters that if the official law won't protect them, then they will do it themselves. The cold forbidden endless land suggests that Chandelar is on the literal edge of the world where if you're not too careful, you could fall off and be lost to the elements.

This outsider status of the future state also is felt in the people who live within Chandelar. Many arrive in this small town with secrets, emotional baggage, and histories that they would rather leave behind. However, these are secrets that someone like Frankie wants to exploit for his own gain.

Plenty of the eccentric residents have something that they don't want others to know about from Evangeline, a prostitute and Frankie's ex who now finds herself falling in love with a certain priest, to Teddy Moses, a dog sledder who paid off his debts by letting Frankie take provocative photos of his daughter. Then there are characters who flee into Alaska from Communist Russia and are under suspicion from Cold War era Americans. Even Hardy himself has arrived with a hidden past in which he is still grieving for the death of his wife and has his own divisive questions about his faith and the nature of evil.

In this murder, there are many suspects and just as many people who are glad to see Frankie gone. To quote The Chick's song "Goodbye Earl," "(Frankie) was a missing person whom no one missed at all." 

In fact the death of a town bully and the small town of potential suspects is similar to the 1981 murder and subsequent investigation of Ken "Rex" McElroy who was described as "the town bully" of Skidmore, Missouri. McElroy was accused of numerous felonies including assault and battery, child molestation, rape, arson, animal cruelty, cattle rustling, and burglary. Because of his power, McElroy ran roughshod over Skidmore's residents. When he was shot, there were numerous suspects but no one would admit to witnessing who shot him. The investigation went cold and the case is still unsolved. One resident even said that McElroy "deserved killing."

Fortunately, murder mysteries want, no demand, resolution and Indecent Exposure is no different. Even if the murder victim is the worst person on Earth, their murderer needs to be caught. Otherwise what's the point of reading all of those pages? The revelation of Frankie's murder is a bit underwhelming but the lead up with the setting and the long line of potential killers is much more compelling.