Review: The Reluctant Sheriff: A Mick Hardin Novel by Chris Offutt

For those of us who have followed this series from the beginning in The Killing Hills, we know that Mick Hardin has not really felt at home since he came back as his time in the service was ending. After the events in the last book, Code of the Hills, we knew he was probably going to have to stick around awhile due to the fact that his sister, Linda, was shot and a few others things happened. The Reluctant Sheriff: A Mick Hardin Novel by Chris Offutt picks up a few weeks later and things for Mick are not easy at all.

 

For one thing, Mick Hardin is filling in as sheriff while his sister, Linda, the actual elected sheriff, is working on coming back from her line of duty injury. He’s wearing the uniform, driving her official car, living in her house, and doing the job while she is living at Shifty Kissick’s place, doing her grueling physical therapy, and going slowly mad from boredom and the chaos there. The Kissick home has never been known in the mountains of eastern Kentucky as a place of peace and calm and it certainly isn’t these days.

 

For another thing, the department is short staffed as the deputy known as “Johnny Boy” is on leave and gone for reasons detailed in the previous book. So, Mick is constantly responding to calls, both trivial and important. He hates family drama calls and the latest was a bit out there, in more ways than one. As bad as it was, the next family drama deal is going to smack close to home.

 

When he gets back to the station, he finds his ex-wife and the woman he still madly loves, Peggy, waiting in his office. She wants his help. Her new husband, Zack Jones, has been held with charges pending over in Rocksalt. It seems that the police in the city plan to charge him with murder of Marlowe Martin, known to all as “Skeeter.” He was the owner of the Ajax Bar and Grill. He was found dead, hours earlier, in the parking lot of the establishment by guys delivering liquor to the place. While the business itself sits just across the county line, the actual parking lot is in the jurisdiction of the city, and that means it is a city murder case under the jurisdiction of Chief Logan.

 

Fortunately, Logan and Mick Hardin have known each other for years and like and respect each other. They have no issues. So, Logan is willing to discuss the details of the case. Such as the fact that Zack is part of a band, played at the bar, and felt that he and his bandmates where being cheated out of their full pay for the gig. Zack and Skeeter had a very heated public argument in the preceding hours before Skeeter was found dead and has no real alibi. Logan is more than willing to provide copies of the crime scene, let Mick talk to Zack, and let Mick do whatever else he wants to do involving the case. For a man used to being part of Army CID and working homicides, this access gives Mick a solid starting point to do something productive as he awaits Linda’s return to work.

 

What follows is an interesting case that is the primary storyline accompanied by several secondary ones. As always, Mick’s loner mentality, his default setting, as well as the author’s love for the land and its people comes through loud and clear to the reader. So too does the fact that as always in this series, things come up just like they do in real life, often not in a clear cut and straightforward way. This series is not like a lot of the reads out there and you really notice the difference when you read one.

 

Those aspects of the read do not get in the way of a mighty good mystery. In fact, if anything, they enhance it. Then there is the fact that there is more than one mystery at work in The Reluctant Sheriff: A Mick Hardin Novel by Chris Offutt. This fourth book in the series, where every book builds on the preceding one and the series, is well worth your time.

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/41UCFEL

 

My digital ARC came by way of the publisher, Grove Press, through NetGalley with no expectation of a review.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2025