Review: Things in Ditches

If you look, you can find lots of things in ditches--old tires, miscellaneous trash, keys, even dead bodies.

“Vicky Johnson’s killer rolled onto his right side, drew his knees up under the warm covers and cautiously peeked through the darkness at the crisp digits of the clock-radio counting his last moments on earth, death waiting patiently for him to shower and dress.” That’s a long--44 word-- sentence. It’s the first sentence in the prologue of this first published novel by Hoffman, Minnesota native, Jimmy Olsen.

Olsen has been a reporter, a treasure-seeker, a scuba instructor a machinegunner and a family man. He’s lived in various parts of the world. He has stories to tell and, mostly, he tells them well, if not briefly. “things in ditches,” is the story of a man named Phillip Dutch Cleland, a businessman in the small Minnesota town of Willow River. Cleland is the town butcher. He’s married to a local school teacher and he carries around an old secret and some suppressed guilt. Several years ago he was unfaithful. The affair lasted a while and then ended. Cleland confessed to his wife, Jean and events receded in memory. The woman with whom he had the affair was Vicky Johnson.

The discovery of Johnson’s nude body in a ditch outside of Willow River sets in motion a series of events which lay bare animosities and competition between a whole raft of citizens. Olsen takes the story both forward and back in time to explore some of the characters and their motivations. For the most part the reader will be clear as to the time frame, but you do have to pay attention. When the story moves ahead, it does so with directness and excellent pace and is finely plotted. There are twists and turns here enough to satisfy the most rabid mystery reader.

Throughout the book, lovingly detailed, idiosyncratic small town characters appear and then disappear, each contributing in some important way to the progress of the story. From the beginning, an unseen character is the weather, which brings its weight to bear on the novel, first as a vague threat, and then, when the enormous blizzard breaks over the land, with direct consequences.

Olsen has fashioned a novel that intrigues us from the beginning. With one or two lapses into heavy psychological musings during which our attention wanders, the story moves briskly back and forth to it’s conclusion. But when we reach the last quarter of the book, the tone changes, becoming self-indulgent. At about the same time the editing similarly flags and the frequency of typographical errors suddenly rises. In many cases common words are misused, suggesting that the pressures of deadline may have been a factor. In spite of these deficiencies, ‘things in ditches” is a creditable well-written mystery. I look forward to more crime fiction from this author.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carl Brookins - RAM

Book Review: Things in Ditches