A Fragment Too Far, by author Dudley Lynch, is the first installment in the authors Sheriff Luther McWhorter Mystery series. True Detective meets X-Files in the first installment of the Luke McWhorter series. Sheriff Luther McWhorter is the Sheriff of Flagler County in West Texas stepping into the shoes of his grandfather, and his father before him. But the most curious thing about Luther is that he wanted to be a preacher. In fact, he has a Masters of Divinity Degree from Yale. Luther's girlfriend just happens to be Angie Steele a Special Agent in the FBI.

On what appears to be just another ordinary day in West Texas while Luther is enjoying the day, slowly turns into a nightmare with possible national security implications after he follows the trail of buzzards to an abandoned home. In and around the home, Nine physicists plus another unknown person who appears to have been intentionally killed, have been found dead. Sheriff Luke McWhorter must work with the FBI to track down a serial killer. Could debris from Roswell’s 1947 UFO crash have anything to do with the mystery? The medical examiner has determined that the victims died from drinking coffee laced with rat poison.

The owner of the house, Professor Thaddeus Huntgardner, isn’t necessarily a suspect, but his claim that a piece of the debris from Roswell’s 1947 UFO crash was hidden in Flagler might be true. Huntgardner was also affected emotionally after watching a nuclear explosion go off in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. Is the fragment real? If so, who is trying to locate it? And what has fueled the byzantine activities of Abbot County’s two secret societies for the past 70 years? Working with Angie Steele, Sheriff Luke begins to put together all the pieces and comes to understand the connection between seemingly unrelated phenomena.

Thoughts: If you were a fan of the TV show X-Files, you will enjoy this story. It has a mystery, a serial killer, mysterious events that seem to tie into Roswell in 1947. With all the new Congressional awareness that aliens are visiting the planet, this book should give alien fans plenty to enjoy. Luther is an interesting character who has deal with the nuisances of being someone who has had the secret of what is actually happening in Flagler. Neither his grandfather, nor his father, both deceased, bothered to enlighten Luther before he agreed to become Sheriff.

Now, he has to look at everyone in a different light. The professors he once trusted are keeping secrets, and the more Luke's pushes, the more things seem to be intentionally swept under the rug. His own people may or many not be involved in a major conspiracy. And, yes, the President of the US who is not willing to let Luther walk alone into the dark without shedding a bit of light on the reality of aliens and dangerous fragments. There is allegedly a sequel out in the universe, but I have not been able to find it. We shall see.

This is probably the oddest review I have written since I started blogging. The oddness comes with the conflicting feelings I have for it, having never had such polar reactions to anything before I had to think before starting the review. The two parts being the narrative voice and the story itself. Usually, they are a team, and I can like or dislike a book based on the combination. Here the mix is the reason I am uncertain as to how I should talk about the book.

 To start with, I really liked the narration. The writing, the tone and the lead character were all-engrossing and upbeat while maintaining the seriousness of the multiple deaths at the very beginning. We are in a small town whose sheriff is the third of his family to hold the post. He is also a divinity graduate and surprisingly (for me at least) added to the multicolour shades of our main man. I really enjoyed reading the book which I was lucky to get a hold of. 

The story itself, the plot and the finale were too bizarre for the setup! I am usually all for twists and surprise additions, and when the first mention of it was slipped out, I thought it would be a placeholder for something bigger, but it was not. The plot, in its entirety, revolved around something that I could have gotten behind if not for the writing and how the overall picture was framed. It is like the painting, and the colours do not match each other while separately they would have been better accepted.

I would read the next book in the series given a chance just to revisit the people and the town, but this plot lost me almost halfway through. I would recommend it to others solely based on the writing and the subtle humour laced into well-framed dialogues and descriptions.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and after that expired before I downloaded it the publishers were kind enough to send me another copy. The review is entirely based on my own reactions while reading the book and nothing else.

Even if it's well written and the character development is interesting I couldn't connect to the book and it fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Dudley Lynch writes a complex story combining mystery with science fiction in Sheriff Luke McWhorter’s fascinating first adventure.

This account starts when the sheriff finds the remains of nine unidentifiable bodies at the abandoned home of physics Professor Thaddeus Huntgardner, some thirty miles outside of Flagler. The Professor, now 90 with dementia and living in the Pecan Mountain Nursing Home, is rumored to have found a strange piece of debris from the Roswell alien incident in 1947. Then, just a teenager, he retrieves the object and keeps it hidden all this time.

By the time the bodies are identified – they are all physicists who belong to a group led by Professor Huntgardner called Unus Mundus (One World) Masters – another body has been found and the Professor has disappeared. Sheriff McWhorter, along with his girlfriend, FBI Special Agent Angie Steele uncover the back story as informally compiled by the sheriff’s father and grandfather, both preceding Luke as sheriff. They review boxes of “unofficial” documents that describe unusual events and mysterious activities that occur over the years including the disappearance of Bible Professor Wilson Carmichael. An intruder leaves a note “Don’t Make Roswell’s Mistake” with a flashing blue light in the sheriff’s living room. Next morning, the sheriff finds a bomb beneath his car.

While Lynch plays with lots of moving parts, A Fragment Too Far is an intriguing read. The twists keep the pace afoot. The characters are interesting and well developed. Since this is the beginning of a new series, I’m a bit more than curious about what the next adventure will bring.

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

Luke is the third generation of McWhorter's being the Sheriff in Flagler. Ten murders have occurred and now he begins to put together all the pieces and understand the connection between seemingly unrelated phenomena.

This book didn't resonate with me. Many obscure flying pieces that were fit together with no apparent cohesion.

2☆