‘Death Pans Out’ by Ashna Graves
Published by Poisoned Pen Press, February 2008. ISBN: 978-1-59058-475-9
Death Pans Out is an unusual story which has an unusual setting. Ashna Graves, the writer, as the word pans in the title suggests, tells her story against the background of the Old West in America, specifically in her missing uncle's goldmine in Eastern Oregon. The names of the places, real or imaginary, give authenticity to the setting, for example Sufferin' Smith Mine, Billie Creek Canyon, Rattlesnake Gorge, Wallowas Mountains. The names and occupations of the various characters are similarly appropriate, Skipper Dooley is an artifact hunter, Darla Steadman (female) is a rancher, Andy Sylvester is a mining engineer.
The story concerns a journalist, Jeneva Leopold (Neva), who, recovering from breast cancer and the operations that go with it, retreats from life to seek healing of mind and body, in her uncle's mining cabin. The writer explains in the acknowledgements that the place is real and the experience similar to her own but without the murder. Neva is also seeking to find out what really happened to her uncle, her mother's only relative, who had disappeared from the cabin fifteen years previously. A suggestion of what might have been his fate is given in the first chapter. Apart from the healing, Neva finds that she is establishing a kind of understanding with the mind of her uncle and his partner in the cabin, Orson Gale, who is currently living in a nursing home in England. However, when Roy, a young mining engineer is found murdered, Neva finds herself involved, and she becomes determined to solve the reason for his death. Her quest reveals some unexpectedly shocking practices and she is lucky to escape with her life.
A personal knowledge of the area and some detailed knowledge of the technicalities of mining for gold give depth to the book, together with a skillfully contrived plot. There are also some appropriate words and phrases concerned with the mining industry, "the hopper feeds into the rorating drum or trammel", "cutting a serpentine through the pastry", "rammycackin around the hills". This is a first book by this author and I look forward to a second.
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Rosemary Brown