Review: "Robak's Witch" by Joe L. Hensley

 

Robak’s Witch by Joe L. Hensley St. Martin’s Press, 1997   In the Spring of 1992, while perusing the stacks at Waldenbooks, I found a mass market paperback tagged at 10-cents. It was a PaperJacks Bogie’s Mystery—remember that long gone Canada-based publisher?—titled Robak’s Fire, by Joe L. Hensley. I snapped it up like all I had was a dime, which was probably about right, and took it home. I started reading that same afternoon and turned its final page the next morning. The rural Indiana setting, the colorful and believable characters, and the main player, a lawyer named Don Robak, all rang true and the plot, which has mostly been lost from my head over the decades, was exciting enough that I’ve carried Robak’s Fire around with me ever since expecting that I’ll read it again. I haven’t read it again, which isn’t so strange, but Robak’s Fire is the only Joe L. Hensley novel I had ever read, which is downright weird. Until now, anyway, because Hensley’s eleventh (of twelve) Robak mystery, Robak’s Witch, is (finally) my second excursion into Robak’s world. In Robak’s Witch, Don Robak has just been elected as a judge—he will take the bench at the first of the year—and recovering from an abdominal gunshot wound he received in the courtroom while representing a woman in a divorce proceeding. The details of the shooting, which are relevant to the story being told, are spread throughout the narrative like so many tasty tidbits. Robak, who has quit his practice and plans to take it easy and heal during Indiana’s fickle autumn, is facing his own divorce. His wife Jo took their son to live with her sister in Chicago. So when Robak’s college buddy, Kevin Smalley, calls and asks for his help on a death penalty case, Robak pretends to hesitate but agrees with some enthusiasm. Bertha Jones, an herbalist labeled as a witch by a local millennialist pastor, Reverend Allwell, is accused of poisoning her nephew and niece, Jim and Mary, by dosing a stew she made with nicotine. Bertha had cooked the stew outside in the yard and most of her neighbors in the trailer park where she lived saw the teenagers die in excruciating pain. The good Reverend Allwell was so upset, he tried setting Bertha on fire. There is little doubt in the community of Bertha’s guilt and Robak’s job is to ensure the defense has performed its due diligence for Bertha. But what Robak finds is a community, including government officials, fearful of Allwell and his followers. Robak’s Witch is a sparkling example of a low-key regional legal thriller. Robak, nursing his gut wound and often in pain, perfectly narrates the story with colorful character descriptions, easy legal explanations, and tense—well written—suspense. There is a smooth climactic twist that is more surprising than it should have been and, in the end, the good guys win. The background themes about fundamentalist religion, White Christian Nationalism, and hate mongering are as relevant—perhaps even more so—today as they were in the late-1990s. Robak’s Witch is simply terrific! Now if only I will read another Joe L. Hensley book before three decades ticks by again.

Robak’s Witch, and all of Joe L. Hensley’s Robak novels are out-of-print, which is a shame—but it does give me an excuse to haunt a few used bookshops.