Dead Float: A Cal Claxton Mystery

By: Warren C. Easley
Illustrated By: Nick Greenwood
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4642-0266-7
Reviewed By: Kristi Benedict
Review Date: July 23, 2014

After a career as an L.A. prosecutor, Cal Claxton has moved to the Oregon countryside to run his own small town law practice and help a friend with guided fishing trips. It is quite a change from the hustle and bustle of the city but Cal knows this is where he needs to be, especially after the devastation of losing his wife a few years earlier. The most important things in Cal’s life now are his daughter Claire and getting back to a better quality of life. It is not long before Cal’s fishing buddy Philip Lone Deer asks him to help with an upcoming fishing trip paid for by a group of co-workers in a large technology company. After agreeing to help, Cal learns that the group includes people who he talked to before about coming to fish but also includes a woman he had a short fling with. So, Cal now finds himself in guiding a fishing trip with a woman he had an affair with named Alexis and her husband Hal who happens to be the CEO of this company. Oh yes, this trip should be interesting.

It does not take long for this trip to take a turn for the worst but in a way no one could have imagined. The first night on the river the unthinkable happens as a scream pierces the quiet of the early morning and everyone discovers that Hal has been murdered! With the recent talk of new technology coming into the company everyone on this trip could possibly be a suspect but Cal never expected for the number one suspect position to land on him. After his knife is found in the river, the local police quickly come to the conclusion that Cal himself committed this murder and they won’t let up until they somehow pin this crime on him. Knowing the only way to prove his innocence is to solve this crime himself, Cal embarks on his own investigation, desperately trying to piece together clues and follow any leads that could possibly help him before it’s too late.

This book starts out with a bang as within the first two chapters a gruesome murder is committed with the victim’s throat cut from ear to ear. After starting with such a dramatic event I was thinking the entire book would be just as intense but as I continued reading the middle part of the book was not quite as appealing. Everything was written in first person through Cal’s point of view but I did find myself wishing that other views were given to allow the reader to feel as if they were a part of the story and have a behind the scenes view. However, in that last few chapters the author comes back with another bang throwing all of the clues quickly together.

Quill says: This is a book that starts and ends with intensity but slows down in the middle.