This is the second book in the series by Archer Mayor which follows Brattleboro Vermont police officer Joe Gunther. First published in 1994, it follows him as he’s assigned to the State Attorney’s office for a possible embezzlement case, but ends up in the middle of an arson and murder investigation.

The setting is an area of Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom. I’ve been there, and it’s not quite as isolated and insular now as it’s described in the Borderlines. It’s suffering from what many New England towns are going through as industries abandon the area and the only way to make money anymore is in relation to tourism.

Joe Gunther spent summers of his youth here. When he’s tasked with working not far away, he decides to visit Buster, the man with whom he stayed in the summer when his parents needed someone to watch over him. Joe thinks it’s a chance to catch up with Buster and a few other old acquaintances from that time. However, the town of Gannet is very different from what he remembers. It’s been just about taken over by a cult known as The Order who have bought up many of the houses in town and operate a “natural” restaurant. The town seems to have a love-hate relationship with the cult. Their initial influx of money was a welcome sight to the town, but as time has gone on, people’s opinions have changed.

When Joe arrives, he finds the family of one of the cult members there to try and rescue her from The Order. However, it seems like it’s impossible to even see her. They confront some of the members of The Order at one of the homes and an argument ensues. Later that night, the house is burned to the ground with five victims inside.

It would seem to be an open-and-shut case, but there’s more going on here. The parents are the likely suspects and are acting suspiciously. They have been working with a cult deprogrammer, who also turns up rather quickly after another murder.

There were a couple of problems that I’ll get out of the way first. Number one was the sheer number of new characters to try to keep track of. The only ones here from the previous book are Joe and his girlfriend, Gail, who really only talks to him on the telephone. The rest are all new and numerous. I was confused a couple of times about who was who and had to go back to double-check that I was right. The second is that several plot points come up and then are completely dropped. Red herrings may be fine, but to spend so much time and detail on a particular thing that appears suspicious and then have it go nowhere is a loose end that should have some resolution.

Reading what Joe experiences upon his return to Gannet is a sort of “you can’t go home again” situation. These are people he thought he knew from his childhood, but they were not frozen in time as he seemed to expect. They’ve lived their lives and become different people, which is hard for him to accept. The characters who are part of the town are well fleshed-out, but the cult members and various others are not as well done.

Borderlines is only the second book in the series, but it’s a bit of a sophomore slump. I think the author could have done better by maybe keeping Joe down in Brattleboro for a few more books before moving him around, and maybe introducing a couple of the characters earlier in the series so we already know them (or at least of them) a little bit. There’s a lot of Joe’s backstory dumped here on top of the whole mystery and it feels like a lot to digest with so many characters. Still, I won’t abandon the series because of it. There’s enough promise with the character and the setting that the series intrigues me, particularly because I live in the next state over and have visited all 251 towns in Vermont.

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