No Badge, No Gun Book

Maybe 3.5. I liked a lot about this book -- Depression-era South Dakota and the characterization. Sign painter, ex-con, and unlicensed PI Carl Wilcox is an appealing figure. He gets involved with a spirited librarian, Hazel Warford, and their relationship crackles along. The detecting and the mystery seem a little thin -- and the stakes seem somehow low. I thought Adams might go after small town sanctimony and secrets a bit more, but he has a light tough (which is preferred to a heavy hand). I may backtrack and read another Carl Wilcox book -- since Adams was already up to #15 by the time this one came out in 1998. (Adams died in 2014 at the age of 91.)