Law Students

In 1983, the TV miniseries was alive and well. My brother and I, however, were forbidden from watching any weekday television, but my parents, who subscribe to the ?do as I say and not as I do? school of parenting, loved to watch their miniseries during sweeps weeks. One week, my parents were engrossed in a miniseries called ?Chiefs.? Now, my brother and I figured that it was some historical movie about Native Americans in the United States, and it was not until much later (when Mom and Dad finally allowed us to watch the miniseries on VHS) that we realized the story was about POLICE chiefs.

Having watched the miniseries, I searched out the source novel. I was not disappointed by what I found. ?Chiefs? is a mystery story spanning the time period between the 1920s and the 1960s. There is a serial killer loose around the small Georgia town of Delano, a serial killer who flies under the radar of the local law enforcement. While the identity of the killer is known early on in the novel, the story itself weaves an intricate tapestry as it details how the police work of 3 different Delano police chiefs ultimately result in the killer?s reveal.

Although the mystery is the back story that drives the novel forward, the rich characterizations and the vivid descriptions of the differing time periods covering particularly turbulent periods in the South make this novel stand out from the typical mystery novel. We follow different characters through the years (and their families), and we see the transformation of the South from the years of Jim Crow on through the Civil Rights movement of 1960s. I love this novel. There are so many wonderful characters. I hope that you all enjoy it as much as I have.

If you are curious about the actors they chose to play some of the roles, look here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084997/