Cry Me A River

"A police officer is found brutally murdered in a small southern town, his head so disfigured by bullet wounds that he can only be identified by the distinctive smell of his hair tonic. A fellow officer vows to find the killer. Accompanied by a whisky-addled sidekick who functions as a backwoods Dr. Watson, the investigator assembles clues, interviews suspects, proposes and discards theories, and in the process paints the portrait of an entire community. Part of the considerable humor of this novel derives from its hilarious dichotomy of form and content. Pearson's meandering prose style, full of folksy digressions and extended reminiscences, is completely at odds with the hard-boiled, no-nonsense approach a murder investigation would seem to demand. A few paragraphs into the book it is clear that "whodunit" is not really the issue." ... Library Journal.