MICKEY FRIEDMAN – Hurricane Season. Dutton, hardcover, 1983. Ballantine, paperback, 1984.

   Set in the Fifties in the small northwest Florida town of Palmetto, Hurricane Season is a period piece. From the very beginning — the night the Men’s Lodge puts on its Womanless Wedding (a wedding play in which an the characters are played by men) — we are reminded of when the story is taking place by little touches, such as the Communist Threat, Nugrape soda, and off-the-shoulder peasant blouses.

   These touches are used sparingly — not once do we have the sense that the author is being heavy-handed with her research. But what really makes Hurricane Season work is the characters, who become embroiled in murder during the sultry days of August 1952.

   Events begin with the night of The Womanless Wedding when the swamp catches fire. Seen mainly through the eyes of Lily Trulock, a middle-aged woman who, with her husband, runs the grocery and marine supply, other unusual happenings follow: A mysterious stranger, Joshua Bums, comes to town; the daughter of the town’s leading politician seduces a young religious fanatic and shortly afterward is / found murdered; a book of poetry that the dead woman wrote comes into Lily’s hands. And finally Lily, convinced that her son-in-law, the sheriff, is mishandling the , investigation, sets out to get to the bottom of things — with  surprising results.

   A promising first novel that shows great sensitivity to the way small towns and the interrelationships of their residents work — be it in the Fifties or today. Friedman’s second novel, The Grail Tree, which is set in India and California, was published in 1984.

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.