Welcome to the Dunes

Rating:
Summary: Murder Among the Writers
Review: It's the summer of 1984, Ronald Reagan is in the White House, and Jack Hasling's appealing anti-hero and amateur detective, Danny Hanfield is attending a writer's conference at the Dunes Retreat Center in hopes of getting a "boost out of mediocrity."

In "Welcome to the Dunes" Hasling has written a well-crafted "weekend in the country" mystery as well as a deft portrait of protest politics in the 1980s. Hasling's characters are vivid and include a charismatic Chicano leader who plays both sides of the legal fence, a KPFA lefty self-named Angela, the droll hooker Tina Louise who knows where all the bodies are buried, and the publishing heiress Cornelia Ferndale, a well-known supporter of the Nicaraguan contras who is at the heart of the mystery. To round out the picture, Hasling also takes a gentle poke at the dynamics of writing conferences and the people who run them.

Hasling brings it all together in a compelling story told through the eyes of Danny Hanfield, a likable guy who has achieved little in his life beyond teaching high school drivers ed - a man who describes himself as "firmly and uncompromisingly on the fence", a man who doesn't like goal-setting and feels profound discomfort discussing his feelings. A prize - second prize, of course - for a short story based on the Glen Campbell song "By the Time I get to Phoenix" brings him to the writing conference and to a romantic turning point in his as-yet directionless life.

The rich detail of the Central Coast setting will make "Welcome to the Dunes" of particular interest to Californians. But mystery lovers in any geography will enjoy a good read here.