Denny is stranded in northern Vermont after crashing his rental car on the way to the airport. And when a mildly intoxicated woman barges into his hotel room, it looks as if the night might not be completely wasted. But before long, Marge is dead and Denny's the primary suspect. Unable to leave by plane or train (because the police have his name), and without a car to drive, Denny's stuck in town.
If that wasn't enough to make life complicated, Denny is mistaken by the locals for Homer Dumpling, a young man who left town rather suddenly a few years back and hasn't been heard from since. That bit of mistaken identity at least gives Denny a place to stay, but it has him frantically tap-dancing his way through conversations with all of Homer's friends, and some of them are starting to get suspicious.
Carkeet's given us a nice breezy comic mystery here, and a terrific protagonist in Denny, whose lack of social grace is alternately charming and irritating. Denny's increasingly frantic attempts to successfully pass as Homer give the story a touch of the con-man, and it's great fun to watch him gleaning tiny little clues from scraps of paper and overheard conversations. There's a fine assortment of supporting players, too -- Lance, the cop who's not sure about "Homer" from the start; Homer's prickly girlfriend, Sarah; and Nick, Homer's most loyal friend.
This is Carkeet's sixth novel (sixth for adults, at least; there are also a couple of YA novels), and he deserves to be better known than he is. I haven't read all of his books, but I've enjoyed the ones I have, and I think his first novel (Double Negative, in which a linguist must solve a murder based on the pre-verbal babblings of the toddler who is the sole witness) is a small masterpiece. From Away doesn't rise quite to that level, but it's a nice bit of entertainment.
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