The Wizard Murders by Sean McDevitt

Beaumont is a small peaceful town in the state of California. It’s only 70 miles away from the city of Los Angles but has got no affect of the city’s smoke and smog here. It’s your typical small town where everybody knows everybody. People are cordial. At the most the police department has to deal with either drunks or the rowdy teenagers, whose idea of rebellion is playing loud music or adorning a tree with toilet papers.
The last homicide that the town witnessed was 12 years back. But now that is about to change.
 Detective Andrew Pitt is fifty year old and is just thinking of his retirement. He just wants to move in   with his brother in Maine.
But he has to postpone his plans because someone has decided to kill people in Beaumont. The corpses are being found and the only thing that connects those corpses is the painting of wizard that the killer paints above the corpse.
Will Andrew Pitt be able to nab the culprit or will he find that his department has bitten more than they can chew?

The Wizard Murders by Sean McDevitt was an entertaining read for me.
I have often liked reading stories and novels based in a quaint little town because I come from it. Pauri (the place that I come from) is a small hill station although it is definitely bigger than Beaumont. But I have found that most small towns are similar. They are peaceful and everybody knows everybody.
So, I keep imagining if such thing would happen in my town how the police there would react? And the reaction would be similar to the one described in the book. I have often found that if I could relate to the characters or place mentioned in the novel than I like it more than the one’s where places or characters are not the ones that I have encountered. So, being set in a small town was one of the things that I liked about this book. But that’s not the only thing.
I also liked the way character of Andrew Pitt was written. He’s in his fifties and not so fit. At the starting only we are shown that he’s fat who finds it hard to give chase. Now when he comes across the murders then there is only his wit that he can work with and how he uses it is fun to read about.
When you imagine a protagonist in mystery novels you hardly imagine characters like that but that’s how most cops are. Most cops that I have come across are not fit. In cities it’s because they are overworked and  don’t have time to look after themselves and in small towns because they get lazy due to less amount of work they get there.
The way the police department handled the murdered also seemed realistic. When you haven’t dealt with a particular situation before then you are bound to make mistakes due to inexperience.
Now there was only one thing in the novel that I didn’t like. I didn’t like the end and felt it was a little rushed. If there would have been more struggle in the final capturing of the culprit then it would have been a fitting end to the book. Also, the explanation for wizard’s painting was anticlimactic to me.
In the end I would just say that I enjoyed reading this book. If you are looking for a good read then you would find it fits the bill. I’ll check other works by the author.
If you  have read this book then do tell me what did you felt about it? If you haven’t then you can get the book from the link below:
Kindle
Paperback