Review: ‘Saratoga Payback’

Memo to books editor: Thanks for sending me the Stephen Dobyns book to review. You've added 22 novels to my to-read list.

Released last month, 'Saratoga Payback” (Blue Rider Press, $27, 349 pages) is Dobyns' 11th mystery in the Charlie Bradshaw series but the first since 1998. Dobyns, who earned an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1967, has also produced 14 poetry volumes, short stories and works of non-fiction.

Now the former news reporter, who still teaches creative writing at age 75, has returned to writing about a most unusual detective based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Retired from police and private detective work - and married to a younger woman with a teenage daughter - Bradshaw can't help but start nosing around the case after he finds a man of his acquaintance dead on his front sidewalk. Mickey Martin's throat had been cut and his tongue cut out.

Bradshaw can't help himself. Despite his retired status, his detective instincts are just too ingrained to ignore lead after lead and murder after murder as an intriguing case develops. The case also becomes entwined in a case of 'horse-napping” Bradshaw has been asked to look into by a friend in this horse-racing community.

Dobyns has himself in a bit of a writing pickle with this book because his character has no official status. Bradshaw has to spend too much time justifying his involvement to everyone - including himself - in the face of threats that include facing prosecution for doing investigative work without a license. Previous meddling in police business even led to the loss of his private detective license and his weapons permit. All that inner debate grows just a bit tiresome, but Dobyns has an ace up his sleeve.

His writing style is so exquisite and engaging that any misgivings about Bradshaw's constant conflicts with himself, legal authorities and others are easily overcome. Add deft plotting, an uncanny sense of time and place, and a riveting conclusion, and 'Saratoga Payback” delivers a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.