English Lessons by J.M. Hayes

Published by Poisoned Pen Press on July 5, 2011

Despite Sewa Tribal Officer Heather English's disdain for the politics of Arizona's new governor-elect, she isn't pleased to have her Christmas Day shift disturbed by her discovery of his skin nailed to a wall near an abandoned mine on the Sewa reservation.  Nor is she happy to find her name printed on an envelope that has been left at the crime scene.  The enclosed letter warns of an impending war on a drug lord named Rabiso.  At about the same time, a package containing a severed hand is delivered to Heather's uncle, Mad Dog.  We soon learn that two drug dealers named Mouse and Cowboy have hired a hit man known only as "the professional" to take out Rabiso.  For reasons that eventually become clear, Cowboy's people mistakenly believe that Rabiso and Mad Dog are the same person.  The confusion of identity leaves Mad Dog fending off thugs as well as the amorous advances of a beautiful lawyer who has been hired to protect Rabiso.  Meanwhile, "the professional" has an agenda of his own.

Given the lighthearted tone of this mix-up, it's clear that J.M. Hayes wrote this novel with his tongue pressed forcefully into his cheek.  In fact, Hayes couldn't resist the puns to which an unattached hand lends itself.  If that doesn't provide enough humor for one mystery novel, Heather's dad, the sheriff of Benteen County, Kansas, begins Christmas Day by trying to figure out who urinated a message into the snow near a crèche displayed on a resident's lawn, and later confronts an informal militia that tries to occupy the courthouse without missing Christmas dinner.  Then there's Heather's love life -- she's trying to keep a date to meet her boyfriend's parents for a Christmas gathering but dead bodies keep getting in the way -- and the fact that Mad Dog is a shaman with a spiritual connection to a wolf that's smarter than Lassie.

The storyline involving Heather is essentially a spoof of a thriller while the one involving her father is closer to a farcical send-up of the extremely gullible who believe every loony idea they hear on talk radio.  Some of the humor has a political component -- Hayes pokes fun at conspiracy theorists who believe the Obama administration intends to confiscate their weapons -- that some readers might find less amusing than I did.  Readers who want their fiction to remain divorced from politics (and those who think government agents in black helicopters are waiting to swoop down and collect their shotguns) might want to give this novel a pass.

Nearly all the characters in English Lessons are likable.  Heather's father is an older, limping version of Andy Griffith.  The whackos and bad guys are too bumbling to dislike (except "the professional" who is, of course, a professional).  Even Hayes' minor characters have engaging personalities, from Sheriff English's elderly office manager (who becomes vicious when she's playing online computer games) to the gruff doctor who points out that the militia members who insist they want to "save the country" are flying a secessionist flag.

Both storylines are a bit over-the-top by the novel's end but since they aren't meant to be taken seriously, I didn't mind.  The novel is relatively short, the right length to prevent the joke from growing stale.  English Lessons is the sixth novel in the "Mad Dog & Englishman" series but the first I've read.  If they are all this goofy, I'll have to find the time to read more of them.

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