An Occasional Hell

"RIVETING...COMPELLING...Silvis engages the reader from first word to last. --Los Angeles Reader P.I. Ernest DeWalt snooped on two-timing spouses for twenty years until a hail of bullets knocked him out of the game. Whoever heard of a sleuth with bum kidneys? Denied such staples of gumshoe life as booze, salty food, and sex, Ernest DeWalt winds up teaching literature courses in a nearly comatose college town. It's a life that the reclusive DeWalt has nevertheless snuggled into with reasonable comfort. Too bad fate won't just let this disillusioned sleeping dog lie. Too bad a fellow faculty member--in the throes of a fling with the sexy waitress wife of a small-time rock singer--ends up with a musket ball in his brain. And too bad it's so hard to say no to the dead man's wife, when she asks DeWalt to crawl out of his shell and bring his private-eye prowess into play just one more time.... "AN EXTRAORDINARILY LITERATE MYSTERY. --The Washington Times "An interesting puzzle packaged in superior prose, AN OCCASIONAL HELL is an absorbing and reflective read. --The Mystery Review