Lesa's Book Critiques: KRIS LACKEY, GUEST AUTHOR

 Lesa's Book Critiques: KRIS LACKEY, GUEST AUTHOR

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Ten-Acre Rock by Kris Lackey

Ten-Acre Rock by Kris Lackey (Blackstone Publishing, 2023) is the fourth book in the fine police procedural series with Johnston County, Oklahoma, sheriff’s deputy Hannah Bond and Chickasaw Lighthorse police sergeant Bill Maytubby. Kris Lackey is a native of Oklahoma who lives in Norman, Oklahoma. His books exude authenticity of people and place.

Bond and Maytubby are finishing lunch when a backwoods eccentric they’ve dealt with before calls, saying he’s found a skull in a homemade kiln. They verify his discovery and since they can’t tell if the kiln is on Chickasaw land or Oklahoma state land, they both mark the area with crime scene tape and take photos, then send the location to their respective bosses.

Hours later someone runs the backwoods hunter’s truck off the road. When he survives, his determined assailants visit his house after dark with mayhem in mind. Bond and Maytubby juggle their search for the identity of the charred skeleton and for the owner of the property where it was found while trying to protect the hunter who firmly resists their help. They aren’t completely altruistic; it’s obvious his attackers are linked in some way to his discovery of the kiln. 

One of the charms of this series is the use of real places and landmarks. A helpful map at the beginning of the book shows Chickasaw, Choctaw, and southeastern Oklahoma lands with place names. Ten-Acre Rock is ten acres of granite in Johnston County. The granite is an unusual pink, white, and black, some of it was used in the State Capitol building.

Well-constructed, beautifully written story that incorporates Native American issues. Maytubby’s fiancé is a public health doctor who visits reservation schools to promote nutrition early to try to reduce the epidemic of diabetes among the tribes.

Maytubby and Bond are original and realistic. I am so pleased that there is no budding romance between them, as is so often the case. They are law enforcement professionals who work well together and they focus on getting the job done. Very refreshing and lifelike. Seamless nonstop action, this story would translate to a screen easily, although casting Bond might be a challenge. Think Frances McDormand, only taller.

No need to start at the beginning of the series but it helps. Highly recommended. Kirkus starred review.

 

·         Publisher: Blackstone Publishing (July 11, 2023)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: 204 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1982689307

·         ISBN-13: 978-1982689308

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Guest Post: Writer’s Haven or Hell? by Kris Lackey

Please welcome author Kris Lackey to the blog today. Coming this summer is Ten-Acre Rock. This is the fourth book in the Bill Maytubby and Hannah Bond Mystery series.

 

 

 

Writer’s Haven or Hell? by Kris Lackey

 

 

     Promotions come to me from writers’ retreats.  You’ve seen the places—rustic cabins on coastal islands in Maine, rustic cabins in the Georgia pines, rustic cabins perched on Montana scree. Many of them have no electricity.  They all promise the same things—isolation and silence.  For a week, a month, or—horrors!—months.  They all send a bolt of terror down my spine. 

     Some of my writer friends seek out these hermit cells and thrive there, writing like a house (sorry, cabin) afire.  I am happy for them.  But how anyone can write in silence and isolation is beyond the powers of my imagination.  It’s lonely.  It’s boring.  I swear, I would bust out of that cabin before lunch the first day, walk to the nearest road, and hitchhike to a café or diner so I could get some work done. 

     Give me the coffee shop’s hushed convos, the old C&W ballads on speakers turned low, the hiss of the steam wand. And throw in a half dozen college-town baristas—Russian language students, math theory majors, painters, gym rats. They can answer more questions than Google.  “What is this called?” I ask the painter as I point to the edge of my palm.  “That’s the blade of your hand.  I learned that in figure drawing.”  I knew that once but could never have recalled it in a million years. 

     Also, because I am old and often write about younger characters, I have to ask how they describe lowering a car window nowadays (they “put it down”) and what to call the meat you put in a hot dog (“hot dog”—never the “weiner” or “weenie” of my youth, for obvious reasons).  They still know the Three Stooges!

     Before COVID I wrote three of my four Maytubby-Bond crime novels, published by Blackstone, in two Norman, Oklahoma, coffee shops, mostly the Gray Owl.  Working in two daily shifts of seventy-five minutes, awash in human white-noise, I finished each in two years.

     Good to know I’m not alone.  Richard Russo, whose novels I love, writes in New England diners.  My friend and fellow Oklahoma City novelist, the Edgar-winner Lou Berney, writes in coffee shops.   

     Then COVID shut down the coffee shops. 

     I took to walking long distances every day, coming home to a silent study—the dread retreat cabin--to work on the fourth novel.  YouTube offered a trove of ambient coffee house sounds, which I launched each afternoon at five.  My favorites were from Japan and Holland:  I could not understand what people were saying.  All the better.  The clinking of spoons and clattering of saucers still cast their calming spell.  (There is one startling moment in the Dutch shop when someone—a barista I guess—says, “Roger, you have a cappuccino.”)

     And for the first time I drank some alcohol—vodka and tonic—as I wrote during my ante-pandemic happy hour. My editor and early readers of the fourth novel, Ten-Acre Rock, have not found anything awry. Nevertheless, I’m back to writing on caffeine solamente.  

    So, from my perch at the Gray Owl, here’s to my friends who write to the sounds of bustle and gab, steam-wands and Hank Williams!   

 

Kris Lackey ©2023

Kris Lackey is the author of the Chickasaw Nation Mysteries, featuring tribal policeman Bill Maytubby and deputy sheriff Hannah Bond.  The fourth in the series, Ten-Acre Rock, appears July 7, 2023.  Kris lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

Lesa's Book Critiques: NAIL’S CROSSING BY KRIS LACKEY

 Lesa's Book Critiques: NAIL’S CROSSING BY KRIS LACKEY

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Greasy Bend by Kris Lackey

Kris Lackey is a native of Oklahoma. He is a former professor at the University of New Orleans and now lives in Norman, Oklahoma. His writing is packed with details of his native state. The title of his second police procedural Greasy Bend (Blackstone, 2019) is the name of a real bridge in Johnston County, Oklahoma. Built in 1911, the Greasy Bend Bridge was replaced by a new bridge in 2018. This span across the Washita River is no longer open to traffic, making it an excellent place to base a crime story.

The friendship of Johnston County Sheriff’s Deputy Hannah Bond and Sergeant Bill Maytubby of the Chickasaw Lighthorse Police began when they undertook law enforcement training in Ada, Oklahoma. They graduated at the top of their class and continued to collaborate when their respective beats crossed paths. They both lose friends to crime on the same cold day. Bond finds retired accountant Alice Lang in the Washita River with a bullet hole behind her ear two days after they packed groceries at a food bank. Maytubby hears from the desk dispatcher that his friend Tom Hewitt encountered a band of armed robbers at a Chickasaw Nation casino and was shot dead, leaving a wife and small children.

While their personal relationships with the victims keep them from being officially assigned to the investigations, they nonetheless pursue leads as their regular workloads allow. Their search snowballs and leads them into much more dangerous territory than anyone could have expected.

Beautifully written with bits of witty dialog, Lackey’s use of imagery is lyrical but does not overshadow the action-filled story. Solidly plotted with true-to-life detail. This book has overtones of Steven Havill’s Posadas County series, some of my all-time favorite mysteries. I am not sure what about this book reminds me of Bill Gastner and his crew. The credible everyday characters? The juxtaposition of two cultures? The Southwest setting? Maybe a little of all of three.

The two main characters are creatively developed; it is a pleasure to see two more or less ordinary people featured. It is also a satisfying change to see two highly competent police officers who are recognized as such by their management and who are not at odds with them. The rogue cop is a trope that needs to be retired.

This book satisfies my inner four-year-old’s need for a good story while meeting my more critical adult requirements for capable writing and characters I like. Booklist says “This series is a sleeper, well deserving of a larger readership.” Starred review from Publishers Weekly. I do not understand why I haven’t heard of these books before, but I am watching for the next one, which is due out in July 2021. Highly recommended.

 

  

·         Publisher: ‎ Blackstone; Unabridged edition (July 16, 2019)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 208 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1470814080

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1470814083 

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

MysteryPeople Blog: Top 6 Debut Novels of 2017

MysteryPeople Blog: Top 6 Debut Novels of 2017