Joe Gunther is the hero of
Archer Mayor
Archer Mayor is an American author. He wrote the Joe Gunther detective series. Mayor is a Yale graduate and lives in Newfane, Vermont
Newfane is the shire town (county seat) of Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,645 a ...
's long-running mystery novel series largely set in
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
and particularly in the city of
Brattleboro
Brattleboro (), originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The most populous municipality abutting Vermont's eastern border with New Hampshire, which is the Connecticut River, Brattleboro is located about nor ...
.
Gunther was born around 1933 on a farm near
Thetford, Vermont
Thetford is a town in Orange County, Vermont, United States in the Connecticut River Valley. The population was 2,775 at the 2020 census. Villages within the town include East Thetford, North Thetford, Thetford Hill, Thetford Center, Rices Mill ...
. He fought in the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
, then went to college in Berkeley and eventually joined the Brattleboro Police Department as a street patrolman. At the time of the events depicted in the first book in the series (1988), Gunther is the second most senior detective in Brattleboro PD, with nearly 30 years of experience. He subsequently becomes the head of detectives and then moves to the (fictitious) "Vermont Bureau of Investigations", which allows him to investigate serious crimes anywhere within the state.
It is revealed in later books that he made the transition from patrolman to detective some time around 1970. He was briefly married, but he lost his wife to cancer less than two years after becoming a detective, and he never remarried. He had a long-lasting relationship with Gail Zigman, a Brattleboro realtor turned politician, followed by a relationship with state Medical Examiner, Beverly Hillstrom. He has a younger brother Leo, who still lives in Thetford with their elderly mother as of the events of 'Surrogate Thief' (2004).
Books
The Joe Gunther mystery series includes 33 books.
* ''Open Season'' (1988)
* ''Borderlines'' (1990)
* ''Scent Of Evil'' (1991)
* ''The Skeleton's Knee'' (1992)
* ''Fruits Of the Poisonous Tree'' (1993)
* ''The Dark Root'' (1994)
* ''The Ragman's Memory'' (1995)
* ''Bellows Falls'' (1996)
* ''The Disposable Man'' (1997)
* ''Occam's Razor'' (1999)
* ''The Marble Mask'' (2000)
* ''Tucker Peak'' (2001)
* ''The Sniper's Wife'' (2002)
* ''Gatekeeper'' (2003)
* ''The Surrogate Thief'' (2004)
* ''St. Albans Fire'' (2005)
* ''The Second Mouse'' (2006)
* ''Chat'' (2007)
* ''The Catch'' (2008)
* ''The Price of Malice'' (2009)
* ''Red Herring'' (2010)
* ''Tag Man'' (2011)
* ''Paradise City'' (2012)
* ''Three Can Keep a Secret'' (2013)
* ''Proof Positive'' (2014)
* ''The Company She Kept'' (2015)* ''
* ''Presumption of Guilt'' (2016)
* ''Trace'' (2017)
* ''Bury the Lead'' (2018)
* ''Bomber's Moon'' (2019)
* ''The Orphan's Guilt'' (2020)
* ''Marked Man'' (2021)
* ''Fall Guy'' (2022)
References
See also
*
Fruit of the poisonous tree
Fruit of the poisonous tree is a legal metaphor used to describe evidence that is obtained illegally. The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the "tree") of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the "fruit") ...
Characters in American novels
Fictional American police detectives
Fictional characters from Vermont
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