BOOK REVIEW

The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard. Edgar Allan Poe Award nominee

(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com)  It is late one night in 1987 in Small Plains, Kansas. Abby and Mitch, high-school sweethearts, lie kissing on her bed.  Her parents have gone to sleep not suspecting that Mitch is in her room.  Abby decides that tonight is the night, and talks Mitch into sneaking down to her dad's office which is attached to the house. Abby's dad is the town doctor, and Mitch is supposed to steal a condom off the supply shelves.

Mitch eagerly hurries down to the office, but hears voices approaching.  He ducks into the supply cabinet, peering through the slightly open door.  The doctor comes in with the sheriff and the sheriff's older son Patrick. They are carrying a naked, frozen dead body:  a girl that Mitch realizes he knows!  Then, before his eyes, the doctor takes a softball bat and bashes in the girl's face so she cannot be easily identified. The sheriff allows this.

Horrified, Mitch runs home through the howling blizzard to tell his parents, the arrogant town judge and the judge's sadistic wife.  These two respond by sending Mitch away from Small Plains permanently, driving him to Chicago early the next morning.  It's for his "own good" because he might be in danger if the sheriff and town doctor are conspiring to destroy evidence and know that they were seen.

However, Mitch feels that his parents are siding with the sheriff and the doctor who continue to be their oldest friends. Embittered, he stays in Chicago and starts a new life.  He never returns for the next 17 years, and never gets a message out to Abby or to his best friend Rex.

Rex is the sheriff's younger son, and it was he who found the poor dead girl when he and his older brother Patrick and their dad were rounding up stray cows in the killing blizzard that night. Like Mitch, he also recognized her beautiful face. His father and Patrick drop him off at the house and drive off with the dead girl, presumably to take her body to the town doctor. Rex is told never to say a word about that night.  He knows his parents fear that Patrick, a creepy sociopath, killed the girl.

All this is told third-person through Abby, Mitch, and Rex.  Alternating chapters show you the present day. Abby now has a landscaping business and is dating creepy Patrick.  Rex is now the sheriff of Small Plains.   The poor dead girl buried in an unmarked grave 17 years ago has become a local legend:  she is the Virgin of Small Plains who will intercede on your behalf if you pray to her for help with your troubles. 

One big event kicks off the present-day story: the judge's wife is found frozen dead in the cemetery.  Everyone assumes she wandered out in a blizzard to pray at the Virgin's grave. In the past 17 years, the poor woman had developed Alzheimer's.  Surely she meant to ask the Virgin for a cure.  It's this event, the death of Mitch's mom, that makes Rex and Abby remember 17 years ago when the Virgin died under similar circumstances. It also brings Mitch back to town. Soon these three are trying to solve the mystery of the dead girl's death.

I found the book flawed. To be fair, I should note that it was a finalist for both the Dilys Award and the Edgar Award. Also, the 13 reviews it received on Amazon gave it an average of 4.5 stars. However, I figured out the identity of the dead girl's killer early on.  Also, I had problems with the characters. Mitch and Rex are exactly alike! No distinctive voice or mannerisms with which to tell them apart.  I will admit that The Virgin of Small Plains includes a terrific description of a tornado hitting town.  If you're curious, you can find The Virgin of Small Plains on Amazon through this link:

The Virgin of Small Plains: A Novel of Suspense

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