Nothing interesting happens in the little town of Peaceful Bend in Peaceful Valley, Montana. When the novel opens, the sheriff Lucas Monk introduces his town to the reader - together with a bit of a history of his life and the place - drunken brawls happen but no major crime and no Indian problems lately either. And just in case someone starts wondering, he also mentions the time - mid October, 1914.

The town is exactly what you would expect at that time in the area - small town population, farms around it, a tobacco shop, a few bars, a few women which make Internet look slow when you compare how fast information can get to everyone, a preacher, a telegraph office, a small newspaper - and the first car. Pronzini (or the publisher) classified that as a western and in a lot of ways it is - but it is also just at the time when wagons and horses are starting to be replaced by cars so we have a few Model Ts and other early cars sharing the roads with the old means.

And in this silent place, in the last sunny days for the year, the peace is shattered when within a few days, 5 different crimes take place. First a robbery. Then an attempted murder. Then a murder. The other 2 happen later (one more murder and a smaller infraction involving alcohol) but the three that start the wave seem to almost happen at the same time - the tobacco shop loses a wooden Indian, one of the gossiping ladies almost dies from drinking poisoned buttermilk and the young Charity Axthelm, who everyone believes to have ran away with a peddler, is found dead. And it seems like the three crimes are not connected in any way or form.

Pronzini knows how to write mysteries and this one does not disappoint. It is slower than you would usually expect but it fits both the sheriff and the times so anything else would not have worked as well. By the end of the novel, there is one more death, a wanted murdered is arrested and more than one family loses everything. And despite the number of crimes and the seriousness of most of the story, there are enough subplot that make you laugh (and some where you really want to reach through the page and hit someone on the head...).

It is not hard to figure out some of the crimes - the breadcrumbs are there for you to try but usually you won't be more than a step ahead of Lucas Monk. His solutions come from knowing the people and paying attention and not from being especially talented - and that's what had also kept him in office for more than a decade.

The novel finishes with a look into the next year - the whole novel feels like a remembrance from Monk somewhere in the future - and in places he does show this usual "if only I had" way of thinking when you tell the story knowing where it is going. That final makes it less likely for this to become the first novel in a new series -- it is a standalone for now - but it does not close all the doors.

I grabbed this novel from the library because of its title - and I liked it a lot more than I expected. So if you are looking for a calm and nice mystery, set in the past (so no phones, internet, fast information and what's not) and without a know-it-all to solve everything, give this one a chance. ( )