WHEN THESE MOUNTAINS BURN

This slow-burning thriller tracks disparate lives affected by a drug empire in western North Carolina.

Early in Joy’s latest novel, an aging white man named Raymond Mathis drives into the Qualla Boundary and reflects on the history of the Cherokee. The narration moves inside Raymond’s thoughts as he ponders the region: “It was a continuum. The government had never stopped shitting on natives. There was not a single moment in history solid enough to build any sort of trust upon.” Raymond is en route to pick up his son, a lifelong addict who has run afoul of a local drug kingpin. It’s a familiar scene—straight-and-narrow father bails out his tragically flawed son—but the focus is on the complex and harrowing history the two men share in a region with a complex and harrowing history all its own. Joy’s novel encompasses the perspectives of a number of people in this community, with Raymond being one of the book’s two central characters. The other is Denny Rattler, a Cherokee man who’s fallen into a life of heroin addiction and petty crime after a workplace accident. When Raymond’s son relapses and dies, it sets the older man on a path of vengeance. Despite the presence of a few hissable villains, drug kingpins and corrupt cops among them, Joy makes the flaws of Raymond’s approach readily apparent—including a scene displaying the unpleasant collateral damage it results in. It’s Denny who emerges as the book’s most complex character and the one who drives the plot toward its satisfying conclusion.

With memorable characters, deft plotting, and an attention to detail, Joy has written a powerful work of crime fiction.