John Maddox Roberts: A Typical American Town (UK 1995)

From the Publisher:
'Tightly constructed, elegantly simple mystery... a minefield of surprising developments' - Publishers Weekly
Gabe Treloar has a troubled past and an uncertain future. A former Los Angeles cop, he is on his way to a new career as a private investigator in Ohio.

But on the way he gets sidetracked into his midwestern hometown of Monticello. After almost thirty years, much of it looks the same but much is vastly altered... though money and power still rest in the same hands.

Mentally and physically exhausted, Gabe decides to stop for a while, and he rents a room. Though hiding secrets of her own, his landlady Edna Tutt soon becomes a warm, comforting presence in Gabe's otherwise empty existence.

But then Edna is hideously murdered, and Gabe comes back to life with a vengeance - determined to uncover the town's dark secrets, and to bring her sadistic killers to justice.

Even if he himself is a major suspect...

John Maddox Roberts: A Typical American Town. Where the seeds of violence finally come to flower. Headline Feature, ISBN: 0747247137 (May, 1995), 309 p., £4.99.

John Maddox Roberts: A Typical American Town (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
Author of the Edgar Award-nominated historical novel SPQR and its sequels, John Maddox Roberts now introduces a modern-day detective. Gabe Treloar is a burnt-out California cop on his way east to start over as a private investigator, but his trip is temporarily sidetracked and he ends up in his hometown of Monticello, Ohio, a self-proclaimed "typical American town."

Mentally and physically exhausted from years of stress and external pressure, Gabe is somewhat rejuvenated by a reunion with his childhood sweetheart Lola Cohan, and is reluctant to leave. He then finds a kindred spirit in his landlady, Edna Tutts. Hiding secrets of her own, the older woman is nevertheless a warm, sympathetic presence in Gabe's life. But when Edna is brutally murdered, Gabe becomes suspect number one in the eyes of both the sheriff and the chief of police. Determined to bring Edna's killers to justice, Gabe realizes he is coming back to life with a vengeance as he tries to discover why anyone would kill the gentle, intelligent woman. Investigating the mysteries of Edna's past, Gabe keeps finding that there are more well-kept secrets in this typical American town.

John Maddox Roberts: A Typical American Town. A Mystery by the Auhor of SPQR. St. Martin's Press, ISBN: 0312113595 (October, 1994), 247 p., $20.95.