An Environment for Murder By Rod Decker Signature Books (Salt Lake City), 1994. 227 pages. ISBN: 1-56085-063-9 Suggested retail price: $14.95 (US)
Reviewed by: Anna Leon

Blood and Greenery

Television watchers along the Wasatch Front regularly see reporting by Rod Decker, a journalist for KUTV (Channel 2). He is most noted for the Sunday evening feature Take Two. This 30 minutes of talk TV typically matches opposing sides of local controversies -- political, environmental, religious, commercial, etc. -- with Mr. Decker asking insightful questions.

Mr. Decker has been and is a nosy reporter. He has accumulated a heap of impressions about Utah geography and history, Salt Lake City, mayors, governors, LDS General Authorities, businessmen, celebrities, environmentalists, and the quirks and foibles of Mormons. He has unloaded these impressions into a first novel, An Environment for Murder (Signature Books, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1994, 227 pages, $14.95). Adorning the book cover is a green tree leaf which has just fallen onto a pool of blood -- rippling the surface.

The hero of this mystery is definitely not a hero. With a good Utah name - Alma Cannon -- this protagonist is an alcoholic, lazy, middle-aged journalist for a fictional third Salt Lake daily newspaper, the Utah Telegram. Although Al Cannon is probably the cynical voice of Rod Decker, I can't believe that Rod wants his children to emulate this newsman. This book begins in the Office of Utah Governor Parley Smith Wells where Alma is sent for a press release/news conference about a large power plant project sited for Persevere, Utah, by a California utility company. At the conclusion of the book Al Cannon finesses the gathering of all the characters back in the Governor's office for his unveiling of the murderer of Orson Jones. Orson is a employee of the BLM whose suppressed adverse report about environmental damage from the power plant appears to threaten this economic boon for rural Utah. In between Al pursues all aspects of the story -- coal leases, rural Utah impoverishment, corporate intrigue, celebrity environmentalists, newspaper politics, crime investigation, feisty editors -- while drinking and/or schmoozing with environmentalist Paul Rambeau, power executive Coleman Bywater, small town mayor LaVar Hafen, and others. Mr. Decker doesn't seem to like his creatures. Rambeau -- a paranoid environmentalist -- is a ranting and raving tree hugger ever ready with a quotable sound bite: "Can you believe that, Al? Murder for electricity and profit."

Al is definitely a lapsed Mormon. He makes a nocturnal visit to his prim ex-wife and unsuccessfully inveigles sexual favors. He endures a Sunday dinner of overcooked roast beef with his brother Walter and family -- parents and children still in their church clothes. Al's eye catches all the ordinariness of real people. LaDeena (Walt's wife) is characterized as having the brown eyes, slightly bucked teeth, and the quick, neat movements of a squirrel. At the same meal Al must tolerate an impassioned plea from Uncle Moroni: "Moroni raised his fork above his head so it pointed at the ceiling and glinted like a beacon in the light from the dining-room windows. A dollop of mashed potatoes clung between the tines. 'Repent, Alma. Return to the ways of the Lord,' he thundered."

Mr. Decker creates descriptive passages of interest to Utahans and Mormons. At his news conference, the governor extends his left arm with palm upward thus consciously and conspicuously mimicing the posture of the heroic bronze statue of Brigham Young -- the "Brigham Position". From the Capitol, Salt Lake City is observed to spread in perfectly square blocks, symbolic of civic rectitude. State Street stretches out directly south as straight as the part in a missionary's hair. About one fourth of the text is dialogue. The dialogue has a sameness that hinders, at times, recognition of who is speaking. The main conflict -- economic development versus preservation of wilderness -- is an everyday dissidence in contemporary Utah. But this conflict is Western, not unique to Mormon theology and culture. This conflict doesn't carry sufficient interest for 227 pages; following the ins and outs of various coal leases and bank loans is eventually important for the denouement, but also boring.

The marketing blurb on the back cover promises too much: "A reluctant middle-aged reporter...Alma Cannon knows what can happen when you ask too many questions in Utah. He...unravels an all-too believable mystery against the backdrop of an environment suited for murder." There is no Gothic feel to this novel. Instead, this is a whodunit in which I didn't care who did do it.

[MOD: Anna Leon, author of this review, is actually the husband and wife team of Sister Jennifer Anna Pace and Brother Nathan Leon Pace of Salt Lake City.]