Archer Mayor

Archer Mayor, a graduate of Yale, lives in Newfane, VT, and is the author of the Joe Gunther detective series. His past job history includes being a researcher for TIME-LIFE Books, a political advance man, a theater photographer, a newspaper writer/editor, a lab technician and photo editor for Paris-Match in France, and a medical illustrator. In addition to his extensive research and the writing of his novels and occasional articles, Mayor gives talks and workshops all around the Northeast (or wherever else he's invited,) including the Bread Loaf Young Writers conference in Middlebury, Vermont, and the Colby College seminar on forensic sciences in Waterville, Maine. He is also a volunteer firefighter/EMT for the NewBrook Fire Department in Newfane, an assistant medical examiner for the state of Vermont, and a part-time patrol officer for the Bellows Falls Police Department.

Open Season

Originally entitled The Stalking Horse (a title that was used on another book published just a month before this was set to appear,) Open Season concerns a mysterious man in a ski mask, who forces the police to reopen an old murder case by compromising all the members of the old jury. Joe, soon realizing that his department is being used as a stalking horse to flush out the real murderer, must discover who that person is, before the man in the ski mast gets to him first.


Borderlines

Set entirely in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, an isolated, thinly populated part of the state, Borderlines tells of Joe Gunther's temporary assignment to the local State's Attorney's office, which he has taken on in part to get away from Brattleboro, and from his girlfriend, Gail Zigman, with whom he's had a fight. Set in the fictional town of Gannett, the story soon shifts to the discovery of a man's body, and the possible involvement of a back-to-nature cult that owns half the real estate in town. Juggling his own personal problems, jurisdictional disputes with the state police, an escalating animosity between cult members and townies, and a growing number of homicides, Joe moves as fast as he can before events reach a critical mass and overwhelm him.

Scent of Evil

A hand is found sticking out of the dirt at a construction site, and Joe Gunther's detective squad begin to research into who the man belonging to it was, how he was killed, who might have done it, and why. But before they know it, several more people are dead, including one of the town's biggest drug dealers, and others are implicated in a variety of illegal activities, from members of the ruling elite to one of the police department's very own. Hampered by the worst heat wave in a decade, hobbled by the press and intrusive hometown politics, Gunther figures out that the person behind the crimes is being fueled by revenge for wrongs done long ago.


The Skeleton's Knee

A hermit dies in the hospital of a bullet he received twenty years earlier. At his mountaintop home, a skeleton with a bullet hole and a metal knee is found buried in the yard. On the way to the medical examiner's office, the hearse comes under machine gun fire. A long-hidden crime is obviously very much on someone's mind-someone who would love to destroy what little evidence remains. The serial number on the metal knee takes Joe Gunther to Chicago, where he is snubbed by the big city cops, and confronted with some ancient and bloody history. When he returns to Vermont with newly discovered evidence, he's no longer alone. He's picked up a shadowy presence as eager as himself to unmask the person who buried the skeleton with the knee.

One thing you must know about Joe Gunther is that he doesn't age. When you meet him in "Open Season", he's in his early to mid-fifties (left purposely ambiguous by the author). When you finish "The Second Mouse", he will still be in his early to mid-fifites. Nothing supernatural, and it's not ever discussed. Time does pass, relationships evolve, but Joe stays the same age. He is a Korean War veteran (this is one of the places where his age is odd - he's not in his eighties, and he didn't serve when he was 4 years old -- it's fiction), he was born in Thetford, VT, and has one brother, Leo. Through their mother, both Joe and his younger brother Leo were exposed from an early age to books, music, and culture in general. While Joe became a cop-stalwart, caring, and slow to anger, with few interests outside books, work, and spending time with his long-time girlfriend -- his brother Leo never left home, became a successful neighborhood butcher, collects slightly beat up vintage cars, and takes joy in chasing after women with short attention spans and no interest in marriage. On a more fundamental level, however, their parents' efforts paid off. Despite their differences, Leo and Joe are both sensitive, hardworking, and intuitively human. Leo now has chosen to stay at home and care for their now invalid mother.

After his service in Korea, Joe left his troop ship in California and enrolled in Berkeley for a while, reintroducing himself to the books he always loved, and to a culture as foreign to him as that of distant planet. Restless, confused, and lacking any sense of purpose, Joe dropped out of college, returned to Vermont, and became a Brattleboro police officer -- essentially for lack for anything better to do.

From that point on, Joe Gunther grew to become the archetypal, old-fashioned, local cop-compassionate, observant, doggedly persistent. As prone to error as anyone, he is slow to judge, willing to admit his faults, and tends to follow his instincts, which more often than not stand him in good stead. He and his girlfriend, Gail, met an increasingly vague number of years ago (again, a result of the "not aging"), and they have been a mutually devoted couple for years, but they chose to live apart, respectful of one another's independence. This arrangement changes as the books evolve and the reader watches this unfold while still embroiled in solving the mystery at hand.

Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

Joe Gunther's girlfriend, Gail Zigman, is raped, causing consternation and great pain not just to the two of them, but a media frenzy due to her political prominence, his involvement in the case, and her refusal to hide behind a shroud of anonymity. Instead, while Joe and his colleagues narrow in on the identity of her attacker, Gail is leading candlelight parades down Main Street, bringing attention to the true character of rape. But is the man the police nail for the crime the right one? Risking his friendship with Gail, the respect of his peers, and finally his own life, Joe doggedly keeps digging, hoping to find out if the man they have in jail is rightfully there, or if the evidence against him was fruits of the poisonous tree.


The Dark Root

A brutal home invasion by Asian gang members against a prominent Brattleboro Asian family set Joe Gunther on the trail of an underground railroad running through Vermont from Canada to Boston, New York and other US urban centers, carrying drugs, illegal aliens, and other contraband. But why the sudden outbreak of violence in what has been a quietly running operation for years? To uncover the culprits amid a vicious turf battle between rival gangs, Joe enlists the help of the FBI, the Border Patrol, and the Canadian Mounties in a chase that takes him right to the heart of Montreal's Chinatown.

The Ragman's Memory

A small girl brings Joe Gunther a bird's nest-made partially of human hair. In his search to put a body, and an identity, to the hair's owner, Joe comes upon an unexplained death, a grisly murder, a sudden disappearance, and travels the social strata of his hometown from the elite to the homeless, amid a maelstrom of corporate greed, personal betrayal, and blackmail. In the end, Joe discovers the key to this puzzle locked inside the shell-shocked brain of a WW II veteran nicknamed The Ragman, whom he must get to talk before murder strikes again.


Bellows Falls

A routine call asking Joe Gunther to investigate a seemingly minor complaint against a young officer of the Bellows Falls police department leads to the uncovering of a cauldron of spousal abuse, debauchery, teen crime, drug running, and cold-blooded murder. Joe must travel the length of Vermont, from the beleaguered town of Bellows Falls, to the big city of Burlington, and the cold waters of Lake Champlain beside it.

The Disposable Man

An unidentified man is found face down in an abandoned quarry, strangled with a piano wire. The labels have been cut from his clothes, his facial features are Slavic in appearance, and his toes are tattooed with Russian letters. When no one reports any missing persons, and no police agency responds to a fingerprint check, it looks like a dead end for Joe Gunther and his team. But then why are the FBI and the CIA showing such an interest? Searching for the truth draws Joe into a paranoid twilight battle zone where the blood of old cold war combatants runs lethally hot over old disputes. Ruthlessly manipulated by unseen forces, Gunther is pitted against the legal system he has always worked to uphold, and before he knows it, ends up framed for a crime he didn't commit, estranged from his colleagues, and fighting for freedom, vindication, and his own life.


Occam's Razor

A watershed book full of changes in the making, Occam's Razor sets the stage for a radical shift in the Joe Gunther series. Beginning with the discovery of an apparently homeless man's body, draped across the railroad tracks in downtown Brattleboro, the story follows Joe and his squad as they investigate an ever-growing group of suspects-and dead bodies-from the patrons of a down-and-out Canal Street bar, to some gubernatorial candidates in the state capital of Montpelier. The story covers one full year, and by its end, not only have the lives of Sammie, Willy, Joe, and Gail been changed, but-through the enactment of a new state law, so has law enforcement in Vermont.

The Marble Mask

The Marble Mask marks the first full-fledged case for the new Vermont Bureau of Investigation, of which Joe Gunther is second-in-command. The story begins with the discovery of a frozen body on the top of Mount Mansfield near Stowe. This is no big news until it is found that the presumed lost hiker actually died fifty years ago and has been artificially frozen ever since. Not only that, but he's soon found to have been a French Canadian crime boss from Sherbrooke, Quebec, whose descendants are now on the brink of a major gang war. Why was he killed? Why was he kept frozen? Why has he resurfaced in such a dramatic way so many years later? Joe and his new squad travel between the cultural divide of Canada and Vermont, uncovering - among other things - some long lost secrets dating back to the Italian campaign in W.W.II, and the existence of a combat group nicknamed The Devil's Brigade.


Tucker Peak

Joe Gunther's brand new Vermont Bureau of Investigation team is invited by a local sheriff to look into a seemingly mundane series of burglaries at the Tucker Peak ski resort. The sheriff has his hands full, since the resort management is undergoing a massive facelift and environmental protesters are picketing the place against the increased use of pond water for snowmaking. Before long, however, the VBI's honed talents for major investigations are called into action as one of the presumed thieves goes missing, and his girlfriend is found brutally murdered. Questions soon abound, and their answers appear to lurk beneath the festive and artificial veneer of a shoddy ski resort in desperate straights, and the self-righteous posturing of some of those opposing it.

The Sniper's Wife

Leaving the relative calm of Vermont, Detective Willy Kunkle must confront his past as he seeks revenge for the death of his ex-wife in the back alleys of New York City. Labeled an accidental overdose, her death is considered routine by the NYPD. But Willy's investigation points to foul play. Now, his search will uncover more about his own life than even he thought possible-and place him in the gravest danger he has ever known.


Gatekeeper

A known drug dealer is found hanging from a railroad trestle in Rutland, the daughter of a political bigwig is dead of an overdose in the man's apartment, and a young woman (Gail Zigman's niece) is shot while trying to rob a convenience store for drug money. Heroin is hitting Vermont in unprecedented quantities. Vermont Bureau of Investigation special agent Joe Gunther (and Zigman's long time partner) is called upon by the governor to put his agency's talents to work staunching this flood. Unfortunately for Joe, headstrong colleague Sammie Martens takes the initiative and goes undercover in Holyoke Massachusetts before a more organized operation can be put in place. Does Joe pull her out, or take advantage of this lucky but very risky break? Is Sammie fully prepared for what she's about to encounter? Meanwhile, Gail Zigman, stunned by her niece's plight, heads off on her own to discover what led to this tragedy, and Lester Spinney -- another of Joe's co-workers -- finds that the scourge of drugs may have hit inside his own family, forcing him to put his job in jeopardy. Taking place in Holyoke and Brattleboro, Springfield, and Rutland, Vermont, Gatekeeper forces Joe Gunther to choose between possibly saving the lives of countless potential victims, and those of the friends he cherishes. It also offers some insight into the threat that is currently in the headlines of Vermont's daily newspapers.

The Surrogate Thief

In present-day Vermont, a woman kills her ex-husband with a second-hand gun that turns out to have a history with Det. Joe Gunther. Thirty-two years earlier, as Joe and his then wife Ellen struggled with her terminal bout of cancer, local store owner Klaus Oberfeldt was robbed and beaten to death by a local thief using that same gun. Overwhelmed by Ellen's illness, however, Joe's personal grief hampered his investigation, and the suspect, Pete Shea, vanished before they could catch him. As Gunther and the Vermont Bureau of Investigation delve into this now suddenly renewed case, they discover that the political opponent of Joe's girlfriend, Gail Zigman (who is running for state senate) has close financial ties with one of the suspects in the old Oberfeldt investigation.


St. Albans Fire

Winter is on the wane in Northwestern Vermont. The moon hangs bright and cold in the silvery night sky over hundreds of square miles of a peaceful, dormant landscape of dairy farms. Bobby Cutts-young, heartbroken, and unable to sleep-enters the family barn to tend to the beasts within%u2026 and encounters the last nightmare of his life. Suddenly and explosively surrounded by bolts of fire racing in all directions, Bobby and the entire herd perish in a searing, stampeding, Hellish circle of flames.

Called to the scene to investigate, Joe Gunther instantly recognizes arson. But why, and by whom? And for what possible reason? There is little insurance, the family is loving and tightly knit, and there are few neighborhood animosities.

But murder this is, and Gunther quickly discovers it's just one of a series of recent barn-related arsons. Someone is wreaking havoc across the bucolic farmlands surrounding the town of St. Albans, and before Joe can discover who that is, he must dissect the social fabric of the community, the soul of Bobby's family, and the complex, cut-throat business of farming lurking under its placid exterior. This journey will take Joe and his sidekick, Willy Kunkle, from the country to gritty Newark, New Jersey, where they will get lessons in the ways of both big city cops, old-time Mafia soldiers, and the power of money.

The Second Mouse

The Second Mouse takes Joe Gunther and his team off their Brattleboro home turf, forty-two miles west, to chip-on-its-shoulder, blue collar Bennington.

In Wilmington, VT, Gunther encounters the lifeless body of Michelle Fisher. Her corpse, pale and seemingly at peace, offers him no clues about who she was or how she died. There are no signs of violence, no disorder. Snapshots and postcards show a woman who laughed hard and lived harder. Yet diaries reveal a rootless life marred by depression and drink. Suicide seems a reasonable conclusion, but Gunther suspects foul play. The house is for sale, after all, and Michelle was its only tenantresisting all efforts to have her evicted. The unsavory landlord is a prime suspect, but safely equipped with an impressively air-tight alibi.

To uncover the truth about the fate of this discarded, all but forgotten woman, Gunther must follow a confusing trail of half leads and mounting crimes. He draws near to a violent and careless trio of criminals, whose leader is hell bent on making the career move of a lifetime-and uncaring of who might get in his way.

Archer Mayor's NEWEST RELEASE

News travels fast in the small state of Vermont . In this tight-knit society, police officers and investigators proudly maintain a kinship that transcends the boundaries of their jurisdictions. When an unidentified body is found in the peaceful town of Brattleboro, local police and the Vermont Bureau of Investigation both appear at the scene.

But before investigator Joe Gunther can begin to gather evidence of murder, a family emergency sends him to his hometown, where the lives of his mother and brother have suddenly been threatened. Gunther reaches out to a network of police officers who know him only by name and reputation as he attempts to discover the source of this imminent danger.

Meanwhile, his investigative team chases an elusive murderer who has no apparent ties to the victim. In a state that is more like a neighborhood community, secrets are difficult to keep, and it's sometimes impossible to know who can be trusted. Gunther soon finds himself opposing criminals more menacing than any he has ever encountered in order to save those he holds closest to his heart.

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