Good things happen in ‘Bad Things Happen’

“Do you want to read this?” co-worker Lindsey Losnedahl asked, handing me a large-format paper-bound book.

Hmmmm. “Bad Things Happen,” by Harry Dolan, a first-time novelist in Ann Arbor, Mich. My first thought was that, very often, bad things — like a lot of time wasted — happen to people who read books by first-time novelists.

But I was intrigued as soon as I flipped to the first page. Here was “the man who calls himself David Loogan” buying a shovel and trying to remain anonymous even though the checkout clerk seemed to recognize him. And pretty quickly — on Page 4 — we learn that the reason Loogan is buying a shovel is that he’s going to dig a grave.

Well all right, then. If that’s not a suspenseful way to start a book, I don’t know what is.

“Bad Things” might be a first novel, but the kings of the genre could learn a thing or two from Dolan. Loogan remains an enigma throughout the book; we only learn his true identity and why he’s hiding it in the last few chapters. And by that time, there have been six — or is it seven? — murders and Loogan is on the run claiming he is trying to find the real killer — or is he the guilty party?

All of which sounds like one big mess, but that’s something it definitely is not. Dolan never lets things become a muddle, partly because he places the action in Ann Arbor, a place he clearly knows well (and even though I wouldn’t think of this peaceful university town as a hotbed of criminal activity, Dolan makes it believable) and partly because Dolan develops his characters so thoroughly. No one is a throwaway, a red herring; no one is either one-dimensional or contrived. The characters fit together and fit into the action in a smooth, seamless manner.

Because Loogan is portrayed as a serene, placid man, the book carries the same feeling, despite being filled by more dead bodies than a B-level zombie movie. But it’s those still waters you have to watch out for.