An Indecent Death a Compelling Read - 4.5 Stars

An Indecent Death is a classic whodunnit murder mystery written by David Anderson. It features Detective Sergeant Nicholas Drumm, a slightly crusty murder investigator who probably wisely gave up a career in education for police work.

I say probably wisely because one of Anderson's techniques to endear us to Drumm's character is his frequent Freudian slips that his fellow detectives notice, but to which he seems to be oblivious. Students would either assume he is a goof ball or an idiot, neither of which is particularly true.

Drumm and his colleagues, whom he erroneously calls Smith and Wesson, (Wesson is correct - Detective Karl Wesson – but Smith is actually Detective Lori Singh), are investigating the death of a 7^th grade teacher Paula Noonan. As the story unfolds, we discover that many of her colleagues and acquaintances have the incentive, the means, and the opportunity to kill her. The list is led by her estranged husband, a creepy janitor, and a parent who thinks she is unjustly harsh on his daughter.

I read this book to my 13 year-old son, which may have been a mistake, because there are racier aspects of the book that I had to edit on the fly. We discover that Ms. Noonan loves sex, and engages in it regularly, with many different men. Each of these men is investigated thoroughly after an elderly couple and their dog find the body of Ms. Noonan in a shallow grave in a park.

I enjoyed this book immensely. The story was compelling, and Anderson did an excellent job of tying up myriad loose ends into a neat package. My guess is that this is not the last time we will hear from Detective Sergeant Nicholas Drumm, in part because no sooner than he wraps up this case than the phone rings from his C.O. Mark Chappell, no doubt telling Drumm of his next case.

No book is perfect, but the imperfections here were minor. As I was given a proof copy to review, it is possible Anderson may have cleaned up the typographical errors I noted in the text before the final version went to press. I would give An Indecent Death by David Anderson 4.5 stars out of 5.

An Indecent Death is presently only available in electronic format, so if you have a Kindle or a Kindle App, you're good to go. Here is the book's page on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/An-Indecent-Death-ebook/dp/B005P9FSQM