Chiefs

I have read many of Stuart Woods books and they are all good, but this one is totally fascinating and suspenseful. It is about a time and place in history that being from Vermont I am not at all familiar with except what I have read and heard thru the years. Mr. Woods brings it alive in a way that is amazing. I think that instead of passing this book on I will keep it and read it again some day. I understand it is his first book and I think his best.

Essentially, this novel is about three generations of police chiefs in Delano, Georgia, who attempt to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of several young men, and capture the elusive serial killer who victimizes them. However, Edgar Award-winning novelist Stuart Woods has written not only a riveting mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat, compulsively turning pages, he has described the history and culture of a small Georgia town from 1919 through the 1960s, and created such a realistic a populace that, at times, it is difficult to believe this is a work of fiction. Woods' characters are well defined and complex. There are many good moral people who live in Delano, but there are also the corrupt and perverse, those who have many secrets to hide. The story of the town's growth, as well as that of its inhabitants, over the years is absolutely fascinating, as are the details and intrigues of Georgia's state politics. And the history of the tense race relations during the entire period recalls a time of gross injustice that most of us would like to forget.This is one of the best mysteries I have read in a long, long time, and, to my mind, Stuart Woods' best novel.JANA

"Chiefs" is the story of three police chiefs in a small Georgia town: one was the town's very first Chief of Police in the 1920's, the second in the 1940's, and the third in the 1960's. The common thread among the three is a series of disappearances of teenage boys who were traveling through the vicinity of the town when they disappeared.The book isn't really a mystery, since the reader knows the solution to the crime fairly early in the book. What sets the book apart is the well-drawn characters and the unerring and evocative portrayal of the evolution of a small Georgia town from the 1920's up to the middle of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's.Woods has perfect pitch when it comes to dialogue. Every conversation, every confrontation, every characterization rings vividly true. Politics, on a local, state, and national level, is a sub-theme of the book, and the author has obviously done his homework on those topics as well. But the book's most noticeable strength is in its ability to transport the reader almost physically into a sultry Georgia town. Even if you read this during a winter in North Dakota, you'll feel the heat, the tension, the passion, and the fears of a sleepy Georgia town during the mid-20th century for as long as you're reading "Chiefs".

One of Woods' earlier works, CHIEFS, reads like the work of a veteran author. Woods is one of the masters at pacing and it is obviously a skill he possessed early in his career. If you are a fan of his more recent books like THE RUN or DEAD IN THE WATER, you will surely not be disappointed by this one.A serial killer exists virtually unsuspected over the span of three generations of police chiefs in the small farming community of Delano, Georgia. CHIEFS is divided into three separate books, one for each police chief, but the divisions are more complex than merely who is running the department. Delano, the town itself, experiences its own changes in each phase of the story. We see the town flourish in times of economic prosperity, and then struggle as its farming inhabitants grapple with the blight of the boll weevil which destroys their cotton fields. There is the ever-present race clashes, the black and the white fighting for their dignity and place in the rural desegregated South. And Delano's proudest son aspires to establish himself as a viable candidate for the Governor's seat in Georgia.All this provides an intricately textured backdrop in front of which the killer is defying both time and the law. Each new chief of police stumbles across clues left behind by his predecessor, but will the third one figure it out? The killings and the killer's ability to go undetected so long are certainly the focus of the narrative, but the reader becomes just as fascinated by the political, industrial, and cultural development of Delano as well.Once you get into it, you can't help but get hooked. You can read CHIEFS in a weekend's time, because you won't want to put it down.

The characters in Chiefs are without a doubt some of the most interesting and well-developed characters that have ever surfaced in any novel to date. Woods does a great job creating such a diverse group of people all the while keeping them realistic and life-like. He paints a very accurate picture of what the south was like in the early 1900's and the 1950's. Since he created such life-like and believable people, I found myself either hating or loving the characters. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading. The three Chiefs that are the focal point are all very different, and they all have amazing qualities that make them come alive. Aside from holding the same position at one time or another, they also were committed to solving one of the worst series of crimes the south had ever seen.