Welcome back to another short review roundup! Today I feature a couple of novels. One I will give short shrift because it is a sequel, and the first book in the series does all the heavy lifting of convincing a reader to pick up the next one. The other is a fine book but a bit too far afield to write extensively about on this blog. Both are worth picking up, notwithstanding the truncated reviews.
When I say “country noir” in my blog subtitle, I am first and foremost talking about stories of my people—rural hillbillies from southern Appalachia. But I am not just talking about that. I can, have, and will read country noir set in the Ozarks, in the Texas Piney Woods, in the Rust Belt. I have always contended those stories, and books telling versions of them, existed outside the U.S. as well. I just haven’t known where to look. I have also long contended that you can set a country noir in the city. With Rob Parker’s Far from the Tree, I found a damn fine example of both.
The small town of Warrington, smack dab between Liverpool and Manchester in northern England, is roiled when a trench containing 27 bodies is discovered in a local forest. Lead investigator Brenden Foley’s world is further rocked when he makes the first identification—his nephew.
Hillbilly Highways 