No Regrets, Coyote - Softcover

John Dufresne is the author of ten previous books, including two fiction writing guides. A professor in the MFA program at Florida International University, he lives in Dania Beach.

Dufresne’s second crime novel (after Louisiana Power and Light, 1994) is another offbeat tour through the South (this time, Florida). The narrator-sleuth has the cringe-inducing name Wylie “Coyote” Melville. The premise hangs on Coyote’s supposed ability to read crime scenes at a glance; a detective sergeant within the Eden Police Department invites Coyote to look at and return to scenes, though Coyote is not a cop; he’s a therapist. The problem is that Coyote demonstrates very little of this intriguing skill; we get one scene in which he plays Holmes analyzing a room, but the rest we take on faith. The mystery here is that of a supposed murder-suicide, in which a wealthy restaurant owner apparently killed his wife and kids before turning the gun on himself. Coyote has a sense that the man was also a victim, and his search for the killer expands into the Florida underworld. A solid mystery and a provocative narrative voice make up for insufficient evidence of this forensic consultant’s skills. --Connie Fletcher