A Murder for Max: A Maxine Benson Mystery

By John Lawrence Reynolds

Escaping the pressures of big-city policing, Maxine Benson is happy to be appointed police chief in the resort town of Port Ainslie.

Max's biggest challenge is to overcome skepticism at her ability to deal with major crimes—like the murder of Billy Ray Edwards. Few people mourn Billy Ray's passing. He was a bully and was also intent on derailing the biggest development project in the town's history. But murder's murder, and Max is ready to solve it on her own and prove her worth to the townspeople. And maybe even to herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Release date: Oct 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781459810617

John Lawrence Reynolds

John Lawrence Reynolds is the author of more than two dozen works of fiction and non-fiction. He has previously written six mystery novels—most recently, Beach Strip—and is a two-time winner of the Arthur Ellis Award (for The Man Who Murdered God and Gypsy Sins). His many non-fiction books include Leaving Home, Free Rider (winner of the National Business Book Award), The Naked Investor and Bubbles, Bankers & Bailouts. Shadow People, his bestselling book on secret societies, has been published in sixteen countries. A former president of the Crime Writers of Canada, he lives in Burlington, Ontario. Visit him online at johnlawrencereynolds.com.

Book preview

EIGHT

ONE

Police Chief Maxine Benson had to prove something to the people of Port Ainslie. They did not doubt that she could perform most of her duties. And until now they had not questioned the wisdom of hiring a woman as police chief. But Maxine feared this all might end when Billy Ray Edwards was found shot to death in his garage.

Sure, she could hear them say, "you do fine with break-ins and drivers who speed through town. And you lock up Bop Chadwick when he drinks too much rum on Saturday night. And you handled that three-car smashup last New Year’s Eve. But this is murder!"

Bop Chadwick had been christened Bruce Olivier Pratt, which was a mouthful. As a young man, he hated all three given names. So when signing his name he used his initials only, and B. O. P. Chadwick became Bop. Bop married a Toronto girl and moved there. Ten years later he returned to Port Ainslie, homeless and jobless and with a thirst for rum, and the nickname seemed to fit. Everyone liked Bop. And everyone blamed the Big City Woman for Bop’s troubles. But no one knew for sure. And Bop wasn’t talking.

Some people would expect Max to report Billy Ray’s murder to the Ontario Provincial Police. That’s what other towns in Muskoka District did with major crimes. But if she asked the OPP to solve Billy Ray’s murder, she feared they would take over the whole case and send her home to have a nice cup of tea. She would feel like a child being told she couldn’t play with the big kids.

Would this really happen? Maybe, maybe not. But Maxine Benson had seen how male cops could act around women. Even women who wore a police badge like hers. Her badge might say Chief, but she believed this wouldn’t keep them from looking down on her.

She refused to put up with that. She had spent too much time proving she could do all the things expected of a police chief. And she did not want anyone to think she couldn’t deal with a murder herself. Especially the murder of a thug like Billy Ray Edwards. So she intended to solve it on her own. Or at least try.

Almost two years had passed since Maxine Benson was named police chief in Port Ainslie. It had been two years of hard work to show the town councilors they had not made a mistake when they gave her the job.

There had been doubts at the start. A lot of doubts. Many were based on the fact that she was a woman. For some people in town, that was reason enough to wonder if she was up to the job.

Most of the town councilors liked Maxine as soon as they met her. Many were ready to sign her up right away. In a letter to the council, the chief of the Toronto police force praised Max, saying she would make a first-rate chief. The council was impressed.

There was only one problem. The council had been ready to hire a gruff, gray-haired man with a deep voice and a cold stare. Instead, they were about to give the job to a slim woman who spoke softly and smiled sweetly. Everyone who met Max said she was nice and polite and even pretty. The fact was, she looked more like grade-school teacher than a police chief.

So why did they hire her?

The fact that four of seven councilors were women had much to do with it. They did not believe it took a deep voice and gray hair to keep the peace. They thought other things counted as well. Things like being nice to people and using soft talk instead of loud threats.

And so she became Port Ainslie Chief of Police Maxine Benson, Chief Max to everyone in town. This bothered her at first. She hated being called Max. All her life she had wanted a normal woman’s name, like Susan or Emma or Hannah. As a teenager, she had told her mother over and over how much she hated her name.

Your name, her mother had replied, is lovely and elegant. It comes from Maximus, meaning great. So there you are. You are great.

To the kids at school, Maxine said, I am Max, which is not lovely and elegant. It is short and ugly, and it sounds like a tattooed guy who drives a truck.

She could have changed her name as an adult, but she was afraid it might insult her parents. She loved them very much, even if they had given her a name she hated. So she remained Max. She didn’t like it, but she grew used to it.

None of this mattered much now that Port Ainslie had a murder on its hands. Would the people in town doubt that Max could solve it? She was afraid they would. She needed to prove she could deal with serious crimes. Even a murder. And she intended to. But there

Reviews for A Murder for Max

[tatoosh-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a Rapid Reads book, a relatively new format that is described as approximately 1/3 the length of a novel. The material deals with adult themes (sex and murder are common). Publishers intend Rapid Reeds books for ESL students, adults who struggle with literacy, and other readers who want a book they can finish in a single day.A Murder for Max gets off to a slow start as Reynolds establishes Max's background and the Port Ainslie milieu (i.e., the small, rural Canadian that is the setting for the story). The introduction was mildly interesting but also mildly tedious. A more skilled writer would have been able to integrate that information into the story while moving the plot forward. The story revolves around the murder of a universally disliked town troublemaker and the efforts of Police Chief Maxine Benson to solve the crime. Max is aided by a single constable (Henry) and Margie Burns, whose job is to answer the phone, keep the books, and lock prisoners in the jail cells. Margie is more competent than the constable. Hired by a five (all women) to four (all men) vote of the town council, Max competence is doubted and she is constantly aware of the need to prove herself.The story is told from an omniscient point of view and Reynolds relies primarily on exposition to move the plot forward. Long passages occur with little dialogue. Stronger editing would have improved the story. Key details are repeated more than once in the space of a few pages and far too much attention is given to Max's uninteresting ruminations regarding her name. Once the crime occurs Max quickly rounds up the small group of key suspects, interviews each, and arrives at a logical conclusion regarding the culprit. This is the first Rapid Reads novel I have read and despite the obvious limitations of the format I think the ability to finish in a single evening is appealing.

[debralu_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Snagged this via Early Reviewers and didn't realize it was considered a "rapid reads" when I requested it. Took a little more than an hour to read. Perhaps this is more geared for a teenager who has to do a quick book report? Not very interesting to say the least. When I turned it over and saw the price, there is no way I'd spend that kind of money for this rapid read!

[lewilliams-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Maxine( Max) Benson, Chief of police in the small town of Port Ainslie in Canada has a murder to solve. It's the first one this small community has experienced. She has a number of suspects to choose from. Will she be able to solve the crime before the Ontario Provincial Police are called in to do so? This was a fast read( 110) pages and the first in a series. I'd read the second one when it comes out..

[brianewilliams · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a quick read whodunit murder mystery that introduces a new police procedural series. It's a novella that can be read in an hour or so. Readers meet Chief of Police Maxine ("Max") Benson but learn little about her. She is a female police chief in "cottage country" and deals with the petty crimes of a small town, e.g. dogs running loose. Major Crimes need to be referred to the provincial police, but in this story she manages to solve a murder in a day. It's too early to tell whether this series will have legs; there are several other series which are similar -- small town police procedurals with female protagonists.Other books by this author have had more grit in them while this looks more cozy.The short excerpt from the first full length book in the series included with this novella shows some promise.

[dd196406 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A nice small town police procedural. The author gives you all the facts. You just have to figure it out. An easy afternoon read. Enjoyed it.

[grumpydan · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I enjoy the Rapid Reads idea as they are quick and usually entertaining. This one not so much. Max Benson is the police chief of a small port town and the first woman to be so. The town has its first ever murder and instead of contacting city authorities she decides to solve the case herself. Although it is supposed to be a mystery, there is no mystery or suspense. It actually reads as one of those grade school books where the reader is figuring it out as they read along.

[johntgriffin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a Rapid Read book. I guess that in the way back days this would be called a short story. Even as a quick read John Lawrence Reynolds did a good job with the plot and the characters involved. I do wish there was more time to enhance the members of the community for they sounded like they could have interesting back stories. But on to the plot a new sheriff not sure of herself caught up in a rare murder that was not hers to solve but she does in a very solid revile. I enjoyed this book and hope you do also

[candyh_64 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This very short supposed mystery is more about the new Police Chief not liking her name and being stressed by earning the acceptance of the town for being a woman in a positio n of authorityn. I appreciate LibraryThing selecting me to read this book but I would not recommend it.

[bah195 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At 110 pages John Lawrence Reynolds book A Murder For Max is a very fast read with interesting characters and a story that grabs you from the beginning. This mystery will appeal to cozy readers.A Murder For Max is the first book in the Maxine Benson mystery series that's set in the resort town of Port Ainslie located in Canada.The Max of the title is Chief of Police Maxine Benson who was hired for the job with the stipulation that if any and all major crimes come up she is to call OPP (Canada's version of State Police). But when Billy Ray Edwards turns up dead in his garage Max is determined to prove she can handle a major crime. Will Max find Billy Ray's killer or will she have to admit defeat and call for help.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

OCT 04 - This is a book from Orca Books' Rappid Reads collection. These books are intended for adult literacy and ESL. Reluctant teen readers will also enjoy them if they don't mind books with adults as the main characters. I've read several of these now and some are better than others but it is hard to write a "good" book when using a limited vocabulary. This first in a mystery series is written at a Grade 3.6 level. Canadian author Reynolds has succeeded in writing an entertaining and engaging mystery at this vocabulary level. The book takes place over the course of an afternoon into early evening which works very well with this type of book. This is done in the classic Christie style of a group of people, one of whom must be the murderer and the police chief gathers the together to reveal who the murder is. Reynolds has also been able to give the main character depth and have her come to terms, over the course of the book,with a slight inferiority complex of being a woman in a "man's" job. Among the better books I've read in this collection.

[jalenv_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Murder For Max, which I received through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, is the first book in a proposed mystery series within a 'Rapid Reads' series. I learned about 'high interest, low vocabulary' books for reluctant or not-very-literate readers when I was in library school 40 years ago. It's a shame they're still needed.The story takes up pages 1 - 110 of the book. Pages 115 - 120 are an excerpt from Murder Below Zero, which is set to come out in the Fall, 2017. I'm not going to count the words to determine if A Murder For Max is a novelette or a novella. The point is that it's short. It's not as detailed as your usual police procedural, but it could easily be considered a cozy mystery. After all, the victim is a nasty person and some of the suspects aren't exactly solid citizens.If the three shorter types of fiction feature characters from an established series of novels, the author generally gets to spend only the minimum amount of effort to introduce those characters to new readers. Mr. Reynolds doesn't have that luxury. He's got to shoehorn in some of that sweet series character backstory and development that hook readers in book after book, and still keep it a rapid read. (For example, most of an early page is devoted to the town drunk/alcoholic even though he's not around for the rest if the book. He does appear in the excerpt from book two.)Maxine Benson, former Toronto cop, is the police chief for fictional Port Ainslie, a small and pretty town on the shores of Granite Lake, overlooked by Granite Mountain. She's not only the town's first female police chief, she's the first one in the Muskoka District. (That's in central Ontario, the Canadian province that's right above the Great Lakes, although part of it borders Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.)Like Joan Hess's Chief Arly Hanks of Maggody, Arkansas, Maxine's fictional town generally has only petty crimes. Both divorced women are victims of their mothers when it comes to their names. Maxine's mother may not have misspelled the name she bestowed on her baby girl, but she stuck her with one that shares a macho nickname with its masculine counterpart. EVERYONE calls Chief Benson 'Max' and she hates that. Her despised nickname is even in the title, for crying out loud.(I hate the most common nickname for my first name, so I'm granting the chief the courtesy of referring to her by her personal preference.)Unlike Arly, Maxine didn't move from the big city back to her home town. She was a stranger when she arrived and has only one real friend here: GeeGee Gallup, her next-door neighbor.Maxine has only one constable, Henry Wojak, who wanted her job. Margie Burns, the office manager, is as good as another cop, really. She may be 68 years old, but she hasn't forgotten her moves from when she was a martial arts contest winner. It sounds as if the area rowdies are much more afraid of Margie than Maxine or Henry.A company wants to build a resort at Port Ainslie, but local bad boy Billy Ray Edwards, inheritor of the most desirable property in town, won't sell. Even in the short space he has in which to spin his whodunnit, Mr. Reynolds manages to make this reader wonder why no one has ever arranged a fatal 'accident' for the jerk.For all her experience, Maxine has never solved a murder on her own. Can she figure out the killer before the Ontario Provincial Police arrive to take over the investigation?NOTES (pop culture references, fictional and real name-dropping, character facts, and non-spoiler tips to help those who've read the book find things again):Chapter 1:a. It's been almost two years since Maxine became chief.b. Look here for a description of our heroine and the letter Maxine's former boss sent to the town council, as well as the council's reaction to Maxine and a choice she made. c. The furthest Henry Wojak has ever been from Port Ainslie is a weekend in Montreal, Quebec. We learn how much French he picked up during his stay.d. Margie Burns is a grandmother. She makes homemade cupcakes. (These days some young persons will count baked goods as 'homemade' even if the cook used a mix, but I'm betting Margie still bakes from 'scratch,' meaning she measures out and mixes together all of the ingredients herself.)Chapter 2:a. Billy Ray's backstory is given.b Look here for the resort plans that unnamed Toronto company has.c. How Billy Ray treated his live-in girlfriend, Brenda Karp, is told.d. Billy Ray's prenuptial agreement with his wife is explained.Chapter 3:a. Look here for Maxine's neighbor and friend, GeeGee's, backstory.b. Gallup Guitars is on the corner, near the lake.c. We learn why Henry felt what he did about Billy Ray.d. Henry uses 'courage' when he sees what Billy Ray had next to his coffee mug.e. A couple of changes Billy Ray made to his house are mentioned.f. Billy Ray drove a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.g. Henry looks sad even when he's not unhappy. h. The morgue is in Cranston.Chapter 4: a. A certain type of rifle is common in town. We're told why.b. Maxine ranked second in her class at the police academy.c. Maxine made first-class constable within two years.d. The Toronto Police Force had twice named her Officer of the Month.e. Maxine hates guns, but she has a medal for taking the top place in target shooting. She also has two medals for bravery.f. Maxine has never complained about being called 'Max' throughout her police career. We learn why.g. Unless Maxine wants Seth Tourney (or Brenda Karp) for herself, what she feels when she sees the blue-eyed blonde is a hint of envy, not jealousy.h. Seth won a prize for shooting when he was in the army.Chapter 5:a. There's a Willie Nelson comparison.b. Tim Hortons is c. We're told about the gun situation in town. d. Ryan Kelly moved to town five years ago.Chapter 7:a. Rockcliffe Point is described.b. Maxine gets told what attracts some women to men with a bad boy reputation.Chapter 8:a. That Henry Wojak has a cat to feed is the nicest thing I've read about him so far.c. Ivan Curic's office is on the ground floor of the Ainslie Building. Dentists, doctors, and lawyers' offices are on the other two floors. I would expect A Murder For Max to appeal to an adult who likes watching mysteries and cop shows on TV and is trying to improve his/her reading skills, or a teen who hates to read but has a book report due. I'm even mildly interested to find out who the victim is from chapter one of the next book.

[toades_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Received this book as an EarlyReviewer and I enjoyed it . I found the main character, Police Chief Maxine Benson very realistic. The story was very short, but a good read. I would definitely recommend this to others.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Maxine “Max” Benson is the new police chief in Port Ainslie, a small town in Ontario. Besides Max, the entire force consists of one constable and the office manager. In the unlikely event of a major crime, Max is supposed to call in the Ontario Provincial Police. When the unlikely happens and a town resident is murdered, Max is reluctant to call in the OPP. She wants to solve the crime herself, but she'll have to do it quickly, before the OPP arrive and take it out of her hands. There are plenty of people with a motive for this murder. The victim had more enemies than friends, and he was single-handedly obstructing a real estate deal that would benefit the whole town. Max questions all of the likely suspects, one of whom inadvertently reveals the clue that Max needs to break the case.This book is part of a Rapid Reads series of high interest, low literacy short stories or novellas for adult readers. The author wastes valuable time and page space while Maxine reflects more than once on how much she dislikes her name, and on her new friendship with her neighbor, who is completely unnecessary to the story. In a work of this nature, there isn't room for details that don't advance the plot.This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

[upstairsgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Definitely lives up to the Rapid Reads name. It's more of a longish short story than a novel, and it felt a bit like the shortness took the wind out of the mystery's sails, especially since almost as much time is devoted to telling the reader about how much the main character hates her nickname and feels she needs to prove that a woman can be a chief of police as it is to unraveling the killing, which in the end is not that much of a tangle. I confess I didn't find it that satisfying.