He was a bum

Carl Wilcox would be the first to tell you he was a bum. An ex-con who was homeless, a drifter, a drinker and eventually called the murder man, might earn the bum label. Harold Adams created Carl Wilcox and placed him in the 1930s, as the depression was gripping the country, smothering rural America. Banks were foreclosing on mortgages, forcing home and farm sales. Many of these banks were having their doors closed because of ill-liquidity, leaving savers strapped. Jobs were drying up with the economy. Lives were drying up in the dust bowl.

Harold Adams places the town of Cordon in South Dakota, paints it the dreary beige of the dust, fills it with people who endure as much as they live, and then lets Carl Wilcox drift in after being released from prison. Carl gets a room in his parent’s boarding house and does odd jobs to help out. He’s casual, but cares about people. He’s aimless but not irresponsible. He stumbles as casually into a murder, as to a widow’s arms. His knack for resolving the murder puzzles in the first few books eventually earns him some respect in surrounding towns as a man who can figure out murders – a murder man. As the series progresses he becomes just a little more rooted, develops a profession, of sorts, as a sign painter, but continues to wear the aura of the lay about, the underachiever, the bum.

If Carl Wilcox were to put up a shingle as a P.I., he would have to paint the sign himself. This is a quirky lifestyle for a detective!

There are 16 books in the series, and it’s a good series to start at the beginning, with his 1981 book, Murder. Or you could jump into the middle with his Shamus Award winner from 1992, The Man Who Was Taller Than God (Shamus Award for best P.I.)

Discover Harold Adams, mystery writer, here.