Click

Dan Whipple's Click incorporates all the elements of a well-written mystery-suspense novel with a subtle underlying humor that will keep you smiling. A murder investigation in small town Wyoming induces free-lance photographer/protagonist McClary to raise a skeptical eyebrow at investigator Lt. Oldman. When McClary's best friend joins the growing list of victims, the stakes are raised for this artist/observer.Along the trail to the solution of these seemingly small town, small time murders, McClary hooks up with a New Jersey redhead currently working as a reporter for the only in-state newspaper enjoying statewide circulation. When the two witness the assassination of a national political figure (from Wyoming, of course), the ante ratchets up and then Reporter Nadia Bzdak is kidnapped by the conspirators.The tension is appropriately and skillfully balanced by an underlying tone of light amusement which seems to pose the question: "how imporant can anything in Wyoming really be?" (Mr. Whipple needn't have left the state before publishing this gem- many of us here share the same view.)The perfect book with which to spend a winter evening by the fireside forgetting-- for a few hours-- the world's tensions.

Finally, a book Wyoming can be proud of. Dan Whipple pays attention and gives us book with the people we know and love in Wyoming. Who would have ever thought Wyoming had personalities and politics worthy of detective novel status? Better than watching reruns of Northern Exposure, "Click" is full real people and politics revealed to us one snapshot at a time. I loved our sloppy but savvy,loner/photographer/amature detective, he made me laugh out loud and I felt a page turning obiligation to help him get to the bottom of things.Somehow Dan manages to get every Wyoming joke I ever heard into the book without portraying all of us as undereducated bumpkins. Well, he does work in the famous cookie episode.And the best part is, he gives us a heroine of magnificent quality. Not easy for a guy. Although Dan says characters in the book are fictional, I like thinking these folks are my neighbors. Thank you Dan. Read this book.