Julia Keller
is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist turned novelist. She has written eight
mysteries about Bell Elkins, county prosecutor in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia,
and three science fiction novels in the Dark Intercept series. The book introducing
Bell Elkins, A Killing in the Hills, was published by Minotaur in 2012.
No one, least
of all Bell Elkins, thought she would return to tiny Acker’s Gap, West
Virginia, where the reminders of her painful and impoverished childhood were
everywhere. But she found life in Washington, D.C., with her lobbyist husband
and their daughter, suffocating. She responded to the inner call pulling her back
to her home town, where she parlayed her law degree into the county
prosecutor’s job. The never-ending crime and the chronic lack of staff and
resources gave her plenty to think about. She is particularly concerned about
the growing hold illegally obtained narcotics has taken on the community, and
she wants to locate and block the source.
One Saturday
morning, though, the intensity of local crime jumped several notches when three
men were shot dead as they sat over their coffee in an Acker’s Gap eatery.
Bell’s daughter saw it, along with a dozen other town residents taking a break
during their weekend errands. All three victims were harmless long-time
residents with no known enemies. The witnesses were too shocked to really notice
the shooter and their descriptions were so nebulous as not to be useful. The
sheriff and his staff tried to find the culprit but everyone knew the
surrounding hills and hollows could hide an army. A couple of days later a car
tried to force Bell off a dangerously curved mountain road. Bell and the
sheriff were at a loss to explain either incident.
Keller was born
and raised in West Virginia and her love for her home state shows in her
expressive descriptions of the region. She writes beautifully; her use of
imagery is poetic. Page flows into page seamlessly in this tightly structured
narrative of crime interwoven with sociological commentary. I was halfway
through the book without realizing it.
Starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus; Publisher’s Weekly Pick of the Week.
·
Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition (August 21, 2012)
·
Language: English
·
Hardcover: 384 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1250003482
· ISBN-13: 978-1250003485
Aubrey Hamilton ©2021
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on
Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
No comments:
Post a Comment