Sun 17 Jun 2012
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: TED WOOD – Snowjob.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[9] Comments
TED WOOD – Snowjob. Reid Bennett #9. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1993. Worldwide Library, paperback, 1995.
When I think of Canadian mystery writers, three immediately come to mind: Eric Wright, Lawrence Gough, and Ted Wood. All are good, and Wright and Wood are among my favorites. Reid Bennett is Chief and one-man force of a small Ontario town, but often for one reason or another leaves his venue, and the books seem more like hardboiled PI stories than police procedurals.
Here Bennett comes to a Vermont ski town to aid a Viet Nam buddy in trouble. Doug Ford, black, ex-Marine, local cop, has been arrested for the murder of a local woman. He tells Bennett that he was working with her undercover to bust a money laundering scheme involving local bigwigs and New York Mafia.
The problem is that he was doing it on his own and didn’t tell anyone in the Department. The problem is compounded by Ford’s personal grudge against the Mafia bigwig, dating from his days as a NYC cop. The frame is tight, the local force is honest but inexperienced, and no one but Bennett believes him innocent. So Bennett and his wonder-dog Sam go to work.
I’ve never thought that plotting was one of Wood’s strong points, and I’m confirmed in that view here. From the original premise to a confusing if not confused ending, I thought this plot was weak. What I have enjoyed about the series is the well-developed character of Reid Bennett, and the fast paced and forceful writing of Wood; and I still do.
Wood is an ex-Toronto policeman, and though these are in no sense procedurals there is authenticity to the parts that deal with police work. They are usually violent books, and this is no exception., though it’s less violent than some previous ones.
I continue to enjoy the Bennett series, though much less than I would if the plots were better. This is not the best of them by any means, but I’d still recommend it to Wood fans.
The Reid Bennett series —
1. Dead in the Water (1983)
2. Murder On Ice (1984)
3. Live Bait (1985)
4. Fool’s Gold (1986)
5. Corkscrew (1987)
6. When the Killing Starts (1989)
7. On the Inside (1990)
8. Flashback (1992)
9. Snowjob (1992)
10. A Clean Kill (1995)
June 18th, 2012 at 6:53 am
I liked the Reid Bennett series too, though it took me 15 years to find an affordable copy of the final book in the series. Wood also wrote three books as Jack Barnao featuring John Locke:
1. Hammerlocke (1986)
2. Lockestep (1987)
3. Timelocke (1991)
June 18th, 2012 at 10:14 am
I didn’t think that last title, A CLEAN KILL, looked familiar, but yesterday being Father’s Day, I never got around to looking it up. It never had a US edition when it first came out. It was published in the UK as a Collins Crime Club hardcover.
Maybe this is the one you finally obtained, Jeff. I now see it finally came out in the US last November as a print on demand paperback. I liked the series, too, but I don’t believe I ever knew about this last one until now.
Since I had no idea that Wood had written the Jack Barnao books, I passed on them when they came out in paperback. I don’t think they sold well. By the time I learned that Wood was the author, the books were nowhere to be found. In those pre-Amazon days, that literally meant nowhere to be found.
According to one online source, “bodyguard-protagonist John Locke, aka HammerLocke, [is] an expert in guerilla tactics,” which of course I knew at the time, but I wasn’t tempted.
June 18th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
I was married to a Canadian 25 years ago and often heard my wife talk about Canadian mystery writers, so I recognized the three authors in Barry Gardner’s review. I don’t think I ever tried any. of them. I was too busy writing articles about other writers that no one ever read but me.
June 18th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
You mean guys like Burt L. Standish, Nick Carter, Walter Gibson and George Harmon Coxe?
Or are you referring to the really obscure ones?
June 19th, 2012 at 6:28 am
Steve, that is indeed the edition of A CLEAN KILL that I bought. It was weird, because for years I only saw expensive copies (obviously, since it was not published here) but a year or so ago I was checking ABE for something else and there it was, and for only $8. Naturally I jumped on it. (It was a Scottish ex-library copy, by the way.)
As I sort of remember, it wasn’t as good as some of the earlier ones but I was glad to get it at last.
I’ve only read the first of the Barnao/Locke books, which wasn’t really my thing either.
June 19th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Steve,
That’s EXACTLY who I mean!
June 22nd, 2012 at 12:50 pm
I like Wood, or I should say I liked him, as I haven’t read any of them in years. I bought – in hardcover – the first 8 of them, read each one, reread the first four, then they stayed on the shelf. Never bought, read or bothered with those last two as the last couple I did read were pretty weak. I’d recommend to anyone wanting to try Wood, and I think they should, start at the beginning and try the first three, they’re probably the best.
June 22nd, 2012 at 1:42 pm
I’ve read only the first three or four myself, though I’m sure I have them all through #9. Barry’s review has stirred my interest up again.
But probably not enough. If I were to be honest, I wish I could say that I’m going to go back and re-read the ones I have or (even better) read the ones I haven’t. It’s possible, but after this amount of time has passed, not very likely.
It’s just the way it is, I’m afraid.
September 11th, 2017 at 8:48 pm
I collect mysteries and I stumbled across a Wood mystery and liked the cover art. Reading it I liked the character of Reid Bennett. I had the first nine but had a hard time finding a first edition hard cover that was a reasonable price. It took me three years. Oddly enough I also had bought the Barnaos also not realizing Wood was the author. I wish he’d stuck with the cover art style with “A Clean Kill” he used in the first nine.