Police Stories

Buffalo Mountain: An Ike Schwartz Mystery

Name: Buffalo Mountain: An Ike Schwartz Mystery
Author: Frederick Ramsay
ISBN: 9781590583692

by Frederick Ramsay

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Overview

Sheriff Ike Schwartz didnt expect to stumble across Russian spies in this sleepy valley. And he certainly didnt expect to recognize the victim. Kamarov was supposed to be dead...in Russia. And Ike was supposed to have left his CIA past behind him.
Is Ike once again involved in some greater political plot? Does the community know more than they are letting on? The third in the Sheriff Ike Schwartz series.

About the Author, Frederick Ramsay

Dr. Frederick Ramsay was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He received his doctorate from the University of Illinois-Westside Medical Campus. After a stint in the Army, he joined the faculty of the University of Maryland, School of Medicine, teaching Anatomy, Embryology and Histology; engaged in research and also served as an Associate Dean. During this time he also pursued studies in theology and in 1971 was ordained an Episcopal priest. He is the author of several scientific and general articles, tracts, theses, and co-author of The Baltimore Declaration. He is an accomplished public speaker and once hosted a television spot, Prognosis, on the evening news for WMAR-TV, Baltimore. He is also an iconographer with works displayed around the world. He lives in Surprise, Arizona with his wife and partner, Susan.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

In this subpar third outing for Picketsville, Va., sheriff Ike Schwartz (after 2006's Secrets), deputy Whaite Billingsley finds a corpse bearing the ID of Randall Harris, a member of "one of the meanest families" in the backwoods locale of Buffalo Mountain. But Schwartz, a former CIA agent, immediately recognizes the body as that of ex-KGB spy Alexei Kamarov, and the mystery deepens when he contacts Charlie Garland, an ultrasecretive government figure, for help. Despite outwardly approaching the case as a routine and decidedly local homicide, Schwartz is too willing to tell his staff and friends about what is supposedly a top-secret "black program" operation. The layers of intrigue and duplicity are both difficult to follow and impossible to believe. Ramsay exerts considerable energy juggling his convoluted plot with a large number of marginally colorful ancillary characters, all while trying to convey a sense of place. But he has too many balls in the air, and the result is a rarely convincing or credible mystery. (Aug.)

Kirkus Reviews

Why are the FBI and the CIA interested in a murder in a small Virginia town?Only the fact that Picketsville Sheriff Ike Schwartz used to be a CIA agent allows him to identify the body dumped in the woods as that of former Russian spy Alexei Kamarov, whose driver's license identifies him as Randall Harris, from nearby Buffalo Mountain. Given the ongoing FBI-CIA rivalry, Ike warns his computer-maven deputy Sam Ryder not to mention the body to her beau, FBI agent Karl Hedrick. That turns out to be easy when Karl quits communicating with her. As Ike's top deputy, Whaite Billingsly, follows up local leads, Sam's computer wizardry turns up a trail of ATM and credit card use which she finds is being tracked by unknown agencies-a puzzle, since only the CIA knows Kamarov is dead. Ike himself must juggle the baffling murder case, his love life with a local college president, his mother's impending death and his suspicion that a local wheeler-dealer is a crook. When Whaite is killed in what looks like an accident on snowy roads, Ike kicks it up a gear and brings the convoluted case to a rousing conclusion. The third in Ramsey's series (Impulse, 2006, etc.) reveals still more of the improbable challenges that face a Jewish sheriff in a little Southern mountain town.