What Box does so well, without wasting a word, is to create an insular and frighteningly plausible community in North Idaho where Mark Fuhrman, the L.A. cop who sank the O.J. Simpson prosecutor’s case, has a radio talk show and many of the citizens share his conservative bias. It’s the kind of town where a Hispanic officer from Arcadia notices that he’s the only non-Anglo on board the flight to Spokane, Washington. (It’s his refusal to let go of a cold case, a robbery at Santa Anita, that sets off the ensuing bloodbath.) But it’s also home to some good people, notably a courageous banker who has held a dark secret too long and an old rancher (a perfect film role for Sam Elliott) who protects two children--witnesses to the murder of a retired LAPD officer--who are now in flight from the killers.
In a word, heaven.
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Incidentally, please don’t let that embarrassing case of copycat covers, unearthed by The Rap Sheet’s Jeff Pierce, keep you from reading Michael Genelin’s Siren of the Waters, which I reviewed on this page last month.
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