An immersive and substantial murder mystery with a strong heroine.
In this fish-out-of-water thriller, a Richmond reporter takes on a curious homicide case in Appalachian Virginia.
Television reporter Taylor Beckett is not initially interested in driving from Richmond all the way to southwest Virginia to cover the detection of three bodies, all men, each found sealed in a plastic drum and dumped in the woods. “Somebody’s moonshine gig gone bad, probably,” thinks Taylor. “Or dope. Always dope in that part of the state.” But once she gets there, she realizes there is more to the story than meets the eye. For one, the men were all killed by a different method. For another, Eric Blevins, a sensitive, animal-loving teenage water utility employee who found the first victim, has a name very similar to that of a man from Taylor’s past. She successfully coaxes Eric into talking to her, no mean feat in the highly secretive holler culture of Randall County. Haunted by an unresolved trauma from her past, Taylor throws herself into investigating the murders, especially since the local authorities don’t appear particularly interested in doing so. Little does she know she will be forced to wade through a quagmire of corruption, addiction, prostitution, animal cruelty, and a generationslong suspicion of outsiders in her attempt to solve a case that gets right to the heart of modern Appalachia. Ryan’s (Wingspan, 2017, etc.) prose is textured and lived-in, particularly when describing the settings and people of Randall County. “It’s not odd,” says Eric, when Taylor asks him about a man shooting a hunting dog. “Not around here. A dog don’t do the job, it serves no purpose. Hunters kill ’em all the time. Leave ’em in the woods. Trade ’em, dump ’em, whatever.” Taylor—a jaded but ambitious loner who knows how to handle her male co-workers—will read as a bit overly familiar to fans of the genre, but her well-developed backstory provides an intriguing ballast and helps explain her drive to find answers. On the whole, the author manages to move beyond crime novel clichés and expose the deeper ills of the society in which her tale is set.
An immersive and substantial murder mystery with a strong heroine.Pub Date: April 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73360-400-0
Page Count: 375
Publisher: Tanglebranch Manor
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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