"On The Run" by Lorena McCourtney

This is a good book.  There is no doubt in my mind, I would have absolutely no hesitation, the next time a friend asks for a recommendation for a good book to read, I could tell them “ON THE RUN by Lorena McCourtney.”  It is a good book.  Believe me.

Why it is a good book is a simple matter to explain.  McCourtney gives the reader a fun, lively character in her heroine Ivy Malone.  She is ON THE RUN from the treacherous Braxtons, who swore their revenge for her part in the murder conviction of their brother. Her efforts to elude them, (she spies a pickup that seems to be trailing her RV) drifts her into the small Oklahoman town of Dulcy.

It is in Dulcy where she learns of an eccentric older couple - Hollywood writers - who might be looking to hire someone on their land outside of town.  Thinking it a plan to lay low in Dulcy and throw the Braxtons off her trail, while earning some extra money to supplement her Social Security, Ivy drives out to the Northcutts’ property at the end of Dead Mule Road.

However, no one is home.  She is met by a locked fence and strange noises emanating from inside and around back of the house. 

Planning to return later, Ivy leaves the Northcutts a note and drives back to the RV park.  Here she encounters Abilene Tyler/Morrison, a young woman, also ON THE RUN, whom Ivy, through her Christian compassion for a soul in clear need, invites her to move into the RV.  Abilene is trying to escape her violently oppressive husband Boone, whom she was forced to marry as a teenager by her parents.  Ivy discovers that she and Abilene share a penchant for mysteries, which plays well into the book’s overall plot, as there is a continual question suffusing through the action as to whether the murder they suspect is not just a figment of their active mystery-loving imaginations.

Together, the two women drive back to the Northcutt’s property the following day, hoping there will be work for them both.  What they find instead are a gate that is still locked, a front door absent a response, Emus around back, and Jesse and Jock Northcutt (after Ivy climbs through a bathroom window) peacefully seated together, dead, on their sofa.

There is a suicide note.  There is a gun nearby (residue is discovered on Jock’s hand).  There is the agreed-upon eccentricity of the Northcutts that makes suicide a feasible thought.  Yet, for Ivy and Abilene, the matter is not so cut-and-dried.  They suspect murder; and with suspects building (the son, Frank; Frank’s wife Missy; Ute, the former hired hand; and even a mysterious stranger lurking in the woods around the Northcutts’ property… the Braxtons???) the sleuthing has begun. 

But the police accept suicide as the cause of death; so is there any mystery to solve? 

There is real deduction going on here.  There are actual revelations being uncovered.  Do the Northcutts have a treasure of gold coins hidden on their property somewhere?  Is there a safe to be found that contains all the important documents Frank needs?  Is any of it leading Ivy to the identity of a murder, though?  Or is it all just a matter of coincidence?  For example, Abilene discovers a bullet hole in a stuffed dear’s head.  From the murderer or Jessie on one of her wild shooting sprees?  Both are feasible; no one know for sure until the end. 

This is a very good book.  It is a very entertaining book.  ON THE RUN is filled great characters – McCourtney manages to infuse even minor characters with personality (Ivy and Abilene are uniquely their own, just as Frank and Mac are different to themselves) – and a story that is more than just another standard mystery.  There’s a bit of drama, mystery, comedy, action, inspiration – the Christian element is never overdone.  Somewhat a surprise, McCourtney simply adds the Christian faith into the Ivy Malone character as a part of who she is.  The realities of that faith shine through in everything she does (like taking a lost and frightened Abilene off the roads and into her RV home), rather than just in what she says.