The setting is Clay County. Ed Masters is the sheriff and he has a murder on his hands. A young woman’s body has been found just off a highway. She was stabbed multiple times. There is no indication of any sexual assault. Her dress and purse and nowhere to be found. She is clad only in her underwear and shoes.
Ed knows there’s something wrong with this picture, something that doesn’t fit. He knows what it is, but he doesn’t know what it means. It worries him. Ed is like that. He might not be the world’s greatest criminal investigator but he’s thorough and he’s a professional. He likes all the pieces of a puzzle to fit together.
Ed is going to need help. He gets that help from Dunn, a lieutenant on the State Investigation Bureau. They have worked together before and they trust each other. It’s still Ed’s case. It’s the more esoteric forensics stuff that Ed needs help with and Dunn is just the guy for that. He’s never happier than when he has a test tube in his hands. And there will be some moderately complicated forensic evidence in this case.
There’s a minor problem with jurisdiction. The crime was committed in Clay County so it’s a case for Sheriff Ed Masters but the case is linked to events in nearby Clay City. There’s been bad blood for years between The city police and the Sheriff’s Department and this will cause Ed a lot of trouble.
The woman’s name was Lucy Carter. She was a part-time prostitute. She arrived in Clay County a few months earlier. Nowhere is sure where she came from before that. She worked as a carhop at Benny’s Drive-In for a while. Benny’s has an unsavoury reputation. It’s not technically a brothel, no laws are actually broken, but in practice it is a brothel.
There are half a dozen possible suspects. They all had motives for killing Lucy. They all had alibis but the sorts of alibis that Ed knows would never stand up to a thorough investigation. Alibis are like that.
Ed Masters is a really decent guy. He’s honest and dedicated, and fairly competent. He does make some big mistakes. They’re understandable mistakes. He concentrates on the promising leads and if those leads point to a particular suspect he focuses on that suspect. There’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes Ed loses sight of the fact that his prime suspect is not the only plausible suspect. Occasionally he is swayed by personal feelings.
In other words he’s a good solid ordinary cop but he’s fallible. His biggest asset as an investigator is that tendency to worry mentioned earlier. If he can’t make a puzzle fit together neatly, if he can’t tie all the evidence together, he’ll keep worrying about the problem. He’s not the kind of cop who would ever want to charge someone unless he really was satisfied about the evidence.
Ed’s attitude towards prostitution is interesting. He doesn’t give a damn if Lucy was a hooker. It’s not just that as far as he is concerned murder is murder even if the victim was an immoral woman. He genuinely does not see her as having been an immoral woman. He doesn’t seem to have any negative feelings about Lucy, or Evelyn, because of their means of earning a living. On the other hand he has an intense dislike of men who prey on prostitutes, men such as crooked cops. And there is such a crooked cop involved in this case. What makes things awkward is that the corrupt officer is a city cop. This novel certainly does not gloss over police corruption and incompetence - the entire Clay City P.D. is rotten.
The climax comes in swamp country and involves some neat plot twists.
The Girl in 304 is a top-notch mystery. Highly recommended.
Black Gat Books have issued this book in paperback at a very reasonable price.
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