Storyline Revolves Around Immigrants To Big Sky Country

Welcome to Blue Deer, Mont., the setting for “The Edge of the Crazies” (Hyperion, $20.95), Jamie Harrison’s debut novel.

Blue Deer is a quiet little town filled with the old-time locals and the new-time yuppies looking for the last best place.

Jules Clement, the sheriff, is a little bit of both: a local boy who went East and to Europe and finally decided that the solution to his thirtysomething angst was returning home and taking on the job that killed his father more than 20 years earlier.

First, an unfaithful screenwriter is shot and wounded while working in his office and Clement figures the shooter to be the man’s less-than-honorable wife. Then the wife turns up dead and Clement is beset by crimes past and present.

On hand to hinder the investigation are some Hollywood types and New York types. Clement’s own love life makes solving the growing number of crimes even more complicated.

“The Edge of the Crazies” sometimes twists itself into knots that don’t always get completely straightened, and sometimes Clement’s tormented soul makes him agonizing and tedious.

But he’s an attractive enough character as are his odd assortment of employees and friends, and Harrison’s writing about the invasion of the new into Big Sky country is often sharp and perceptive.

This novel is most likely the first in a series that deserves popularity.