No One Else to Kill

Author's Summary

In this book, Jim West travels to a small, remote hunting lodge in the Pecos Wilderness area in New Mexico to rendezvous with an old friend and do some hiking. His friend stands him up, and Jim is about to return home when a murder occurs in the lodge. Law enforcement jumps in, and Jim’s early departure plans are scrubbed. When a second murder occurs less than twenty four hours later, things really start to get dicey. Both crimes were intricately planned to mislead the authorities, no one appears to have a motive for the killings, and everyone has an alibi. Up against a wall with time running out, the deputy-in-charge asks West to be their man on the inside, but West is adamant that this is not his case to solve. Since his retirement from the Air Force, however, Fate has had her own plans for West. Why should this be any different?

MWSA Review

In this fifth installment of Doerr's "Jim West" mysteries, the story centers on a New Mexico hunting lodge and the murders of two people.  West, the story's narrator is an ex-Air Force officer who has the unfortunate knack for showing up where someone violently dies.  In this outing the victim is the chief investor in the hunting lodge, shot to death in a closed room where no one could possibly have shot him.  The local police are predictably baffled and another death – maybe murder, maybe suicide – soon follows.  Stuck in place until the killer is found, West, as much a suspect as anyone, begins to ruminate on how and why all this happened; with predictable risk for his own life.

Doerr writes dialogue very well and uses his talent here to let the lodge visitors and employees flesh themselves out and provide clues to West about their tangled relationships.  The book’s characters are thus the strongest part of the story – each person has her or his own quirks, problems, needs and grudges.  Since everything in the first-narrative is seen from West’s eyes and heard from his ears, the reader learns more and more about West himself as the mystery unfolds.  Readers with their own eyes for details should be able to identify the culprit long before the action begins at the end of the book. Only the last fifth of the book is centered on action as West scurries to escape the killer and then bring that person to justice. 

No One Else to Kill is recommended to those who like their mysteries driven by a first person narrator and dominated by fluid, distinctive conversations between the characters.

Reviewed by: Terry Shoptaugh (2013)