Officer Elvis by Gary Gusick

Published by Alibi on April 21, 2015

When Tommy Reylander, better known as Officer Elvis, is blown up, Darla Cavannah of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation takes a break from hate crimes to investigate his murder. Darla was Reylander's partner in the Hinds County Sheriff's Department before Darla went to the MBI. Reylander stayed behind, comforted by his part-time gig as an Elvis impersonator. Maybe a Cadillac bomb seems like overkill, but if you're gonna kill Elvis, you gotta go big.

The search for Tommy's killer sends Darla to Tommy's girlfriend (a Priscilla Presley lookalike), his lawyer (an online poker enthusiast), a strip club owner, and a whole bunch of Elvis tribute artists (they don't like to be called impersonators).

The identity and motivation of the killer is clever. A little silly, maybe, but this is a fun story, not a serious crime novel, so the silliness works. Some added plot complications at the end make an attempt to turn this into a legitimate mystery novel. The complications depend heavily on a coincidence but they nevertheless add value to the story.

Gary Gusick pokes fun at southern manners, southern beauties, southern rednecks, southern moralists, and, of course, Elvis "tribute artists," a good many of whom (if the novel is to be believed) hail from Mississippi. Gusick parses the language and hypocrisies of the Deep South in a way that everyone who has visited but doesn't live there will recognize (whether Mississippi residents will appreciate the humor is a different question). I particularly like the tradition of following every bit of trashy gossip with "bless his heart" or "bless her pretty little heart." If you don't live in Mississippi or one of its neighboring states, or if you do but have a sense of humor about your environment, I suspect you'll enjoy Officer Elvis.

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