BOOKMONGER
Cat Show to take place in Seaside
SEASIDE – Cats aren’t
known for a love of water,
but you’ll fi nd plenty at
the CFA Allured Cat Show
and Household Pet Com-
petition, held at the Seaside
Civic & Convention Center
on Saturday and Sunday.
Sponsored by the Emer-
ald Cat Club of Vancouver,
Washington, a member of
the Cat Fanciers’ Associa-
tion, the show will feature
both pedigreed cats and
household pets, subject to
diff erent judging criteria.
Find out more at https://
cfa.org
Suspense novel
takes some detours
Take a scenic Oregon coastal town, add
the infi rmities and melancholia of two old
retirees, and stir in a contemporary menace
that is shattering the calm of their community.
Those are the ingredients that Astoria author
William Dean incorporates into his latest sus-
pense novel, “The Ghosts We Know.”
The principal character, Harry Bolden, has
been retired from the local police force for
several years. He’s waging a losing fi ght with
Parkinson’s disease but still has the get-up-
and-go to grab his battered old chess set and
head across the street to the local park to wel-
come all comers to a friendly game.
That’s where he meets Fred Von Stiller, an
elderly, pipe-smoking gent with a formal bear-
ing and a German accent. Both are widowers,
and coming to the park to watch the kids play
helps to distract them from their loneliness
and the regrets that accompany old age.
But any sense of equilibrium shatters with
the suicide of the 14-year-old who had grown
up next door to Harry. He knew that the teen
had been struggling recently, but when he’d
reached out to see if he could help, the boy
had rebuff ed his eff orts.
When another young teen vanishes with-
out a trace, and that kid’s mother describes
seeing similar indications of distress in her
son, the entire community soon becomes
gripped by the fear that someone is preying
on their children. Now parents don’t let their
kids go to the park to play anymore.
Harry grows impatient that his former
colleagues down at the police station don’t
seem to be coming up with any answers, so
he begins his own inquiries, talking to every-
one in the town he can think of, from the
local postman to the vet with PTSD who
lives down the street, to fi nd out if any-
body has noticed anything unusual in the
neighborhood.
He enlists Fred, a fellow aging veteran, to
join him in his escapades, but when some of
their undercover sleuthing crosses the line,
the two old fellows are unceremoniously
hauled in by the cops and scolded for inter-
fering in an ongoing investigation.
Unbeknownst to all, Harry’s blundering
eff orts have actually exposed some concerns
and attracted the interest of a more sinister
element.
“The Ghosts We Know” has all the of the
elements required in a suspense novel of this
CrosswordAnswers
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This week’s book
‘The Ghosts We Know’ by William Dean
Lonely Whale Press – 316 pp — $12.99
type, and the friendship between Harry and
Fred is a solid plus. So far, so good.
But the author takes things further. He
adds complex backstories for both Harry and
Fred. The two are both veterans of World War
II, although they fought on opposite sides.
The story includes scenes from their
wartime experiences. It includes dream
sequences with their dead wives. It includes
scenes from the point of view of the antago-
nists. And there’s a signifi cant subplot about
Fred’s estrangement from his birth family,
which leads to some story detours before get-
ting loosely woven into a fi nal and improb-
able pursuit of the villain. These embellish-
ments sometimes overwhelm the story. One
more draft might have fi nessed some of these
connections.
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMi-
chael, who writes this weekly column focus-
ing on the books, authors and publishers of
the Pacifi c Northwest. Contact her at
barbaralmcm@gmail.com.
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022 // 19