Don Harstad, the author of the Carl Houseman detective stories, is a former deputy sheriff from Clayton County, Iowa. Clayton County is the next county east of my home. It is bounded on the East by the Mississippi River and is in the second tier of counties south of Minnesota. It’s not hilly but it has enough gullies (out west they would be called canyons) so as to not make much difference. Don was a pretty good cop of the good old boy variety, in the best sense of the term. National is a little crossroad hamlet where the county fair grounds sits and is the site of a two day trail ride in October that draws as many as 1000 horsemen.
National County is Clayton County with a little bit of Fayette, Allamakee and Winnesheik Counties thrown in for good measure. It is a strange place with river rats, a fair number of just plain Hill Billies, Irish and German Catholics, Yankees and, at Postville just across the line in Allamakee County, a substantial Mexican and Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Jewish community working at a couple packing plants, one kosher. Harstad writes a good story but he has also caught the flavor and spirit of this end of the State.
Lew Griffin - New Orleans
Napoleon Bonaparte - Australian Countryside
87 th Precinct - Isola (NYC)
Patrick Kenzie & Angela Gennaro - Boston
Inspector Lynley - London
Leo Waterman - Seattle
JP Beaumont - Seattle
Amos Walker - Detroit
Hoke Moseley - Miami
Kathy Mallory - NYC
Nick Stefanos & Derek Strange Washington DC
Karl Alberg - Sechelt BC
Richard Jury - London
Jane Whitefeild - Deganwida NY (Buffalo)
Lydia Chin & Bill Smith - NYC
Inspector Morse - Oxford
V I Warshawski - Chicago
Nameless - SF ?
Who is that crippled ex-cop walks with a cane, based in Florida, has a black girl friend?
Aargh, you and Dillbo beat me to Marcus Didius and Gordianus.
/hijack/ Who’s the Metellus toff, then? I haven’t heard of him. As I do love sceming Roman mysteries I’d be grateful if you could tell me who the author is and whether you’d recommend the books. Thanks. /end of hijack/
Sunny Randall: Boston, MA (AKA Spenser with boobs. They’re so alike, it makes me wonder why Parker even bothers.)
Jackson “Tres” Navarre: San Antonio, Texas
Tres Navarre is the detective protagonist in an excellent series set in and around San Antonio and the Hill Country by Rick Riordan. He’s a PhD in literature and teaches grad-level Medieval Lit at UT-San Antonio.
Inspector John Rebus, Edinburgh.
Piet van der Valk, Amsterdam.
Father Brown, of the parish of Cobhole in Essex, but found all over the UK, and sometimes in France or the US.