"Sloppy and cringeworthy. (Dystopian adventure. 12-adult)"
Two years after Violet destroyed the Intercept in The Dark Intercept (2017), she's pulled into a mystery that reveals the Intercept might not be gone.
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"Keller's prose is so pure that her exploration of the desperate scourge of drugs and poverty and her forecast of a grim future for her heroine are a joy to read."
A macabre 24 hours discloses a world of pain for Raythune County, West Virginia.
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"Although this isn't the best of Keller's deeply nuanced, beautifully written examinations of life and death in hardscrabble coal country (Last Ragged Breath, 2015, etc.), its exploration of the ravages of Alzheimer's is deeply moving."
A deadly accident in 1938 West Virginia is the impetus for several modern murders.
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"A beautifully crafted mystery in which Keller (Summer of the Dead, 2014, etc.) explores love, hate, and poverty in a place of stunning natural beauty with pockets of overwhelming ugliness. The ending may leave you in tears."
A West Virginia prosecutor has an uneasy feeling about her latest case.
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"In her powerfully written third appearance, Bell (Bitter River, 2013, etc.) emerges as a compelling heroine with an especially vexing mystery to solve."
Even though her life seems to be spiraling out of control, Bell Elkins still has to care for her family members and do her job as a West Virginia county prosecutor.
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"A fictional debut for a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, born and raised in West Virginia, whose love for the state, filled with natural beauty and deep poverty, pervades a mystery that has plenty of twists and turns and a shocking conclusion."
A tough prosecutor who's trying to make a difference in the lives of West Virginians suddenly finds her own life in shambles.
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Rachel's father, a member of the National Guard, has come back from Iraq with a serious head injury and without one arm and one leg. In a first-person narration that features an overabundance of often-intrusive similes and metaphors and never truly captures an authentic 13-year-old voice, Rachel relates her family's despair over her father's lack of improvement, his growing social isolation and her mother's eroding ability to cope. Rachel's narrative focuses far more on feelings than events, with her initial anger gradually evolving into a discouraging although believable resignation. The lack of action may leave readers with little motivation to turn the pages, though. In an afterword, the author cites a statistic that more than 80 percent of Marines and Navy soldiers wounded in the war have brain injuries without mentioning that the same source, U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, states the figure for all wounded soldiers is about 22 percent. Most likely to resonate with children of seriously wounded veterans (who may find the lack of hope discouraging but accurate), Rachel's slow-paced tale lacks significant general appeal. (Fiction. 11-14) Read full book review >
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