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Backstabber

by Tim Cockey

Tim Cockey has kept up his usual unusual pace with Backstabber, and even though he's forsaken the titles using 'Hearse' (Murder in the Hearse Degree) his protagonist remains Hitchcock Sewell, the mortician. Backstabber contains Tim Cockey's regular quota of humor, including two off-the-wall events in the first half of the book that made me laugh out loud – and in spite of all the advertising hoopla normally accompanying such novels, that doesn't happen often. Mr. Cockey's Hitch reveals the mortician as young, quirky and likeable – in other words, a very human character, and totally unlike our normal dignified concept of anyone who specializes in embalming. Maybe you need a sense of humor when you're constantly dealing with dead bodies!

Hitch has responded to a friend's frantic call in the middle of the night – only to find his friend and the married woman he's been bonking standing over the obviously murdered body of the lady's husband. Sisco Fontaine is the friend, and Polly Weisheit is the married woman. Neither one has called the police. Hitch suggests they do and goes home.

Lieutenant Kruk has always been Hitchcock's nemesis, and in this case, as soon as he discovers Hitch was present before the police were called to the scene of the crime, he adds Hitch to his list of suspects.

Hitch discovers an old acquaintance, Margaret McNamara, at the Briarcliff nursing home where he goes to pick up a body. Margaret is spry and evidently in good health – they get along well, and Hitch promises to visit often. But Margaret unexpectedly takes a turn for the worst – goes rapidly downhill, and dies. Since Hitch finds out she's not the only one who suddenly departs from the nursing home via his hearse, he begins to suspect foul play among the staff. Marilyn Tuck, heading the organization, becomes the chief supposed perpetrator.

Of course, the murder of Polly's husband is something totally separate – or is it? Between the suspicious deaths at Briarcliff and the murder of Jake Weisheit, Hitch manages to accumulate a number of people who could be involved in either or both: There's Chip Cooperman, still in love with Polly Weisheit even though she was married to Jake, there's also Toby Schultz and his wife Betty, Thomas (the black janitor at Briarcliff), Martin Weisheit (Polly's son), Evelyn Weisheit (Polly's mother), Phyllis Fitch, the nursing administrator at the nursing home, Scott Monroe, who handles grants (including those for Briarcliff), and Ross Greenwood, son of Claudia – who was another of the nursing home inhabitant deaths. And of course there's the mysterious lady in a turban.

When the who and why of Jake Wesiheit's murder – and those at Briarcliff – is finally revealed, we must admire Tim Cockey for his ability to point our noses in another direction. Hitch (and the reader) has his suspicions, and they go from one person to another, but in the last pages of Backstabber we're shown just how wrong we can be.

Tim Cockey is one of the best authors among those who chose to eschew the lawyer, cop, or private investigator viewpoint in solving a murder mystery. His choice of an undertaker as protagonist is both as amusing as Hitch himself and as canny and curious as any bystander would be. Reading Backstabber or any of this author's work immediately places you in the ranks of those who know a good thing when they see it.

Alan Paul Curtis

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