Book Review: The Caveman's Valentine

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

The Caveman's Valentine     Amazon US TPB Amazon Canada TPB
George Dawes Green
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Amateur Sleuth
Warner, $12.99, 323 pp.

At one time, talented musician Romulus Ledbetter was a loving spouse and father until he went insane. Rom now lives in a cave in Upper Manhattan's Inwood Park. He grocery shops in garbage cans and alleys. Rom is so gone he believes in an evil presence, Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant, who is responsible for destroying mankind with the evil Y and Z rays.

Rom’s weird outlook is intruded upon when he finds a corpse just outside his home. Rom believes the forces of Stuyvesant killed the victim and begins his own brand of investigation, especially when the police write off the case as the death of a frozen homeless loser. His inquiries take the schizoid lunatic meandering throughout the elite of the city’s most "civilized" neighborhoods, who would not mind leaving another homeless corpse in Inwood Park or some other woody environs in Manhattan.

Readers will quickly understand why THE CAVEMAN’S VALENTINE is an award winning novel filled with an amusing indictment of society’s ability to push the needy out of sight and thus out of mind. The story line is cleverly written, but clearly belongs to its weird superstar, as strange of a an amateur sleuth as a reader will ever find. Rom never becomes a huggable as his paranoid comments leave the audience wondering if he is dangerous to any of them. That sense of a maniac wandering the streets of the city adds to the overall feel of absurdity yet plausibility that makes the novel work. George Dawes Green heads to the top of the irony amateur sleuth tale with this Valentine gift to sub-genre fans, who will want to read his second novel, THE JUROR.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner