Book Review: Azalea Bluff
Azalea Bluff. Dennis Hetzel, Headline Books: Terra Alta, WVA, June 23, 2021, Paperback, 240 pages.
Review by Marssie Mencotti.
Azalea Bluff is the third novel written by Dennis Hetzel. This one evolved from an audio version of a short story written by his friend, Ed Galloway. The audio version was a homage to old-time radio with peaks and valleys to create a titillating audio experience.
Azalea Bluff is constructed as a solid mystery with a variety of subplots. In a hypothetical beach community at Azalea Bluff in North Carolina lives a family with only minor dysfunction as their children mature, leave the nest, and sometimes return. Jim and Kim Claven’s daughter, Olivia, returns to live with her parents following the untimely death of her fiancé and work-related financial setbacks. She gets a tip that something mysterious has fallen from the sky onto the 50- yard line of her home high school football field. She sets out, determined to get the scoop for her online newspaper. As she gets close enough to observe a mysterious large, bell-shaped object, she is abducted.
What follows is Jim Claven’s pursuit of the truth and the fate of his daughter. This is a daunting quest for a CPA trying to be a detective during a super-secret international event. Hiring a private detective is one step he wisely decides to take. Leaning on Azalea Bluff’s troubled police chief is another tactic. Dealing with the media and finally consulting with a UFO expert take him along a trail of dead ends and bizarre suppositions that still offer no way for him to locate and release his daughter.
There are some things I found very interesting about this book. First, the protagonist Jim Claven is a regular guy. He’s a distracted father, and we learn that he doesn’t know his wife or their children nearly as well as he thought. The book comes alive when we learn about a possible continuing Nazi conspiracy, but this is not usable information for Jim. We are led to believe that the entire US government is somehow complicit in faking a death, imprisoning a snoopy US citizen without cause, interfering with public information gathering, blackmail, and more, leading us to question who the actual antagonist is: the USA, Nazi Germany, or aliens from outer space. Also, what’s the crime? Is it about concealing information that could compromise our national security? It’s kind of swampy ground this premise treads on here. Is it better to release sensitive information to the public and manage the mayhem or let better-informed individuals manage national security-based information on a need-to-know basis?
Here is what may contribute an uneven feel of the novel. It was adapted from an audio play where the objective of having a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter is imperative. There are many dramatic chapter endings. As readers, we must let go of one puzzle and are given another puzzle to explore until we’ve forgotten about the first mystery we were trying to solve. There are at least six novels inside Azalea Bluff trying to break out or find a partner plot or two as subplots to share the story. There’s an abduction mystery, a detective procedural, an international spy story, a sci-fi thriller, an unfinished love story, and a domestic reality novel of what can happen to a family when their child/woman is missing for months. As it was explored, each plot point drew my attention away from what I had been set up to believe was the primary objective.
I enjoyed what the writer(s) were attempting to bridge. I was intrigued by a story of what might happen in an idyllic town to a stable family and community when an event of international importance literally lands on them.