The Feather and Other Tales from Pembina County

This intriguing collection of eleven short stories The Feather and Other Tales from Pembina County centers on Homer Swensen, the sheriff of Pembina County, North Dakota, who combines his interest in birds with his profession of solving crimes. In these stories, Homer faces a variety of crimes that most of us could not even contemplate. In the story "The Feather," the sheriff is confronted by a bank robbery committed by a pair of men who have baffled the FBI on six previous robberies. Homer finds a pinkish feather in the grill of a car and recognizes it as coming from a hybrid population of the Northern Flicker, unique to eastern North Dakota, which allows him to identify the thieves. In "Excalibur," he traces a three-hundred-year-old Amati violin to a Duluth gangster unjustly accused of murder. In "Sylvia," he is pursued by a divorcee who hopes to entrap him through his interest in nature. Homer nearly falls victim to the mushroom poison that has killed a mycologist - a scientist who studies fungi - in the story "Amanita." And in "The Ice Woman," a woman's body is found frozen solid after two nights in subzero weather. She was strangled by someone using Homer's scarf, so he works with the coroner to unravel her last hours and identify the real killer.