Justin Scott. Hardscape. New York: Penguin, 1994. Print.

I enjoyed Scott’s The Shipkiller partly because of its accurate portrayal of the shipping business and oil tankers. His Hardscape was even a bigger kick for me because of its Connecticut setting, the state I have for better or worse called my home for many years. The Shipkiller was a suspense novel, tending toward technothriller. Hardscape is a straight out murder mystery.

Ben Abbott is a real estate agent in the small town of Newbury. (You won’t exactly find it on a map.) Typical of northwestern Connecticut and all of Vermont, most of the big houses in town are owned by New Yorkers. Ben is hired by a private investigator from New York City to spy on the wife of a New York businessman who owns an estate in town. Her husband thinks that she has been unfaithful.

Abbott has spent his time on Wall Street, so he understands the business scene, but Newbury is his home town. He knows pretty much everyone, and they all know him. As in a lot of small towns (think of Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird), a person is associated with his family and often can do little to overcome the family reputation.

Abbott discovers that the wife is indeed unfaithful, but her boyfriend is killed the day after his discovery, and Abbot has not told anyone what he has learned. That same evening his cousin and best friend is also killed. His rich great aunt Connie believes there is a connection. Ben begins sleuthing.

The mystery is a decent one. While Ben is not officially a detective, he used to serve as an investigator for Naval Intelligence. He also spent time in prison for some financial misconduct on Wall Street. There is a good amount of excitement and tension, and the mystery is a puzzle, but I want to write about the Connecticut connection.

Newbury, Connecticut, is a composite. The Grand Union supermarket is at the foot of Church Hill Road. Grand Union has gone out of business since 1994, but back then that was exactly where the supermarket was in the town of Trumbull, Connecticut. Newbury also boasts the tallest flagpole in the state in the center of town. That honor goes to Newtown, which, alas, everyone has heard of in the last two years.

Both of these towns are southeast of Danbury, but we are told that Newbury is north of Danbury on Route 7 along the Housatonic River. It is near Hawleyville, which does exist on the Newtown-Brookfield line just east of Danbury. But Newbury also borders an Indian reservation, which would put it about 20 miles farther north in Kent.

There are a number of towns clustered together ending in -bury: Danbury, Waterbury, Southbury, Middlebury. Newbury would have to be north of these, perhaps the way New Milford is north of Milford (though New Canaan, Connecticut, is south of Canaan, Connecticut).

The State Police Barracks is in Plainfield, which is clearly a stand-in for Litchfield. We are told Newbury is in Plainfield County, so that definitely places Newbury north of Danbury in Litchfield County. There really is a Plainfield, Connecticut, but that is in the eastern part of the state not far from Rhode Island. Danbury and Litchfield County border New York State.

Newbury is small enough that it does not have its own police force. Such towns usually have or share or Resident State Trooper. I used to live in such a town, and the resident policeman was a great guy. He tried to get to know everyone in town and really did a lot to keep things safe. My friends and I respected him.

The resident trooper in Newbury, though, is a jerk. He also has it in for Ben Abbott. There is a reason—remember that stunt involving a chain and the rear axle of police car in American Graffiti? Guess who wanted to see if it worked? Even though that was some twenty years before when Ben was a juvenile, small towns tend to pigeonhole everyone.

It all adds to the conflict and the entertainment of Hardscape.