Briarpatch by Ross Thomas Hardcover with Pictorial Boards. No dust jacket as issued. Part of the Best Mysteries of All Time Series. Like New Condition. Read once. No flaws. Winner of the Edgar Award when it was first published in 1985.

Ross Thomas has been of one of my favorite mystery writers forever. I love The Porkchoppers, The Yellow Dog Contract, Missionary Stew, and all of the Mac McCorkle books.  I had never read his Edgar Award Winner for Best Novel, Briarpatch though until it was made into a tv series a few years ago. I picked this copy up then. It's amazing! Thomas was probably one of the smartest and wittiest people to ever sit down to a typewriter; having been a journalist, political strategist, union rep, world traveler, and general bon vivant. If you love Elmore Leonard, as I do, then you'll go crazy for Thomas; who is Leonard but with a slightly more urbane prose style, equally quirky and unforgettable characters, a darker sense of humor, and more of an interest in political machinations. Briarpatch might be Thomas' best book, in a huge impressive catalogue. It's a funny, violent, masterpiece and a great read!

About the book:

A long-distance call from a Texas city on his birthday gives Benjamin Dill the news that his sister—it’s her birthday, too, they were born exactly ten years apart—has died in a car bomb explosion. It’s the chief of police calling—Felicity Dill worked for him; she was a homicide detective. Dill is there that night, the beginning of his dogged search for her killer. What he finds is no surprise to him, because Benjamin Dill is never surprised at what awful things people will do—but it’s a real surprise to the reader. As Newsday said when the novel was first published, “One sure thing about Ross Thomas’s novels: A reader won’t get bored waiting for the action to start.”