Rural crime fiction that kicks like a mule.
Acclaimed Kentucky writer Offutt follows Country Dark (2018) with another fine example of what might be called holler noir.
Mick Hardin is a military homicide investigator who's temporarily AWOL, back in eastern Kentucky to sort things out with his pregnant wife, from whom he's estranged. He's holed up in his grandfather's remote cabin, drinking himself into a stupor, when his sister—the county's newly appointed sheriff, under pressure from several directions—shows up to enlist his help. An old man hunting ginseng has discovered a body up in the hills, and Linda Hardin needs the case solved, quickly and discreetly. This book looks like a standard thriller. It hits the genre's marks: a Chapter 1 corpse, a hard-drinking knight errant of a detective, etc. Ultimately, though, Offutt's primary emphasis—and the book's—falls less on the title's central word than on its final one. The star is rural Kentucky. Mick knows the land and its flora; knows the clannish, laconic, battle-scarred, loyal, often mistrustful people who live here. The book's triumph is that Offutt understands the difference between local color—which would be mere decoration—and local knowledge, which turns out to be the crucial advantage Mick has in unraveling the case (and humiliating hired guns from outside). Mick knows how to read the landscape, how to win the trust of those he needs to talk to (at one point he works a neat trick in replacing a mule that was serving as a temporary roof support), how to negotiate the blood oaths and rules of family vengeance that obtain in such places. The murder plot ends up being nearly secondary, but that's not to the novel's disadvantage: In place of plot convolutions, Offutt offers those of Appalachian folkways. The result is a fast-paced, satisfying read.
Rural crime fiction that kicks like a mule.Pub Date: June 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5841-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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