The Man in the Crooked Hat

Harry Dolan Putnam

Grief can carry a heavy burden, burrowing into the heart, obliterating other concerns, sometimes even self-preservation, as this clever mystery shows.

Jack Pellum carries that load nearly two years after his wife, Olivia, was found strangled near the Huron River in Detroit. Obsessed with finding the murderer, Jack lost his job as a police detective and has shunned just about every chance his father, a prominent judge, offers to get his life back on track, including the private detective licence his dad secretly arranged for him.

Jack is fixated on what-ifs. What if he had accompanied his photographer-wife that day when she went to take photos in the park? What if he had done something when he saw a man wearing a fedora a few days before Olivia was murdered?

The man in the hat is Michael Underhill, whose identity is revealed in the first chapter. He also is consumed by what-ifs, though his past is much darker.

Dolan skilfully sends Jack’s investigation on a circuitous route that includes other murders that Michael may or may not have committed. Jack teams up with Paul Rook, a young man convinced the main in the hat also killed his mother.

The novel expertly splinters into several investigations and delivers parallel stories of Jack’s quest and Michael’s rebuilding of his life. Each thread leads to the next by Dolan’s intelligent plotting. Some humour and a flair for the ironic also elevate the story.