Banshee Rising

Banshee Rising, Walter Ihlefield, Xlibris Corporation, 2001

Mitchell Parks is a police officer in present-day small-town Virginia. He is also a former Navy SEAL, Codename Banshee. He learned the ways of the warrior from his grandfather, a Lakota warrior, who raised him. He is also troubled by bad dreams of a SEAL mission in Vietnam that went very wrong.

One day, Mitchell finds the ghost of a teenage girl in his attic. Sara McCafferty lived in town thirty years ago, until her father, Ian McCafferty, abruptly packed up the family and left town, never to be heard from again. Ian was a very jealous sort who seemed to spend much of his time being a mean drunk. Mitchell resolves to find her killer.

As Mitchell, Dana, his lover and fellow cop, and Owen Taggart, former SEAL dive buddy, begin to ask around town about the McCafferty's and start rattling cages, someone or something pushes back, hard, almost killing Mitch twice. Some in town are not happy about old town happenings being resurrected. The town is in something of a spiritual time warp, seemingly stuck in the early 1960s; the preferred mode of transportation around town is the Studebaker. The finger of suspicion points toward Clyde Meller, the police chief, and a drug deal thirty years ago that went bad.

This one is surprisingly good. The author gives the feeling of (for want of a better term) knowing his way around; not just mystery writing, but also familiarity with police procedures, and what it is like to be a Navy SEAL. The story is interesting, plausible and well done from start to finish. I hope this is not the last of Mitchell Parks.