The Hard Word: ALANA MEIKE REVIEWS MISSISSIPPI BLUE 42

 The Hard Word: ALANA MEIKE REVIEWS MISSISSIPPI BLUE 42

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Queen City Detective Agency: A Novel by Snowden Wright

Fans of strong female characters will want to make the acquaintance of Clementine Baldwin. Owner and principal investigator of the Queen City Detective Agency, Baldwin is a native of Meridian, Mississippi, and knows most of its secrets. The daughter of a white man and a black woman, she has a love-hate relationship with her home town. Never quite fitting into either black society or white social circles, she has learned to navigate along the edges of both.

Set in January 1985, against the backdrop of the approaching inauguration of Ronald Reagan for his second term as president, Baldwin is retained by the mother of a man convicted of shooting a local real estate developer. Mrs. Coogan is convinced that her son was murdered despite plenteous evidence to the contrary.

The local authorities found the death of Coogan convenient and the resolution of the death of an unpopular real estate developer along with it, so they were increasingly forceful with their attempts to discourage Baldwin from asking awkward questions. Some of the best parts of the book is watching their attempts backfire, sometimes spectacularly. Lurking in the shadows of Baldwin’s investigation is the Dixie Mafia, that organized crime mob headquartered in Biloxi, Mississippi, operating throughout the South with ties to the Ku Klux Klan and the white male hierarchy.

Unexpectedly dark in places and just as unexpectedly funny in others, this book is a strong piece of Southern noir, highlighting as it does the push to bring new ways to the South and the resistance offered by the long-time power structure, unwilling to loosen its iron grip on the status quo. Followers of Ace Atkins’s Quinn Colson books set not far away in northeastern Mississippi will want to read this one, as will those interested in stories about people of color pushing to force change from within the South.

Starred review from Booklist. 

·       Publisher: ‎William Morrow (August 13, 2024)

·       Language: ‎English

·       Hardcover: ‎272 pages

·       ISBN-10: ‎0062963589

·       ISBN-13: ‎978-0062963581

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4dMESH1 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024

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

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Nothing But the Bones by Brian Panowich

Brian Panowich continues his multi-generational saga about the Burroughs crime family on Bull Mountain in McFalls County, Georgia, with Nothing But the Bones (Minotaur Books, April 2024). Most of the action takes place before the later events of Bull Mountain. The book is broken into three segments, the first one set in 1989, the second one in 1996, and the third one in 2007.

Misfit Nelson McKenna was born crippled, his family abused and mistreated him, then he was rejected by most of the world until Gareth Burroughs took him in as a teenager and diverted his formidable strength into an enforcer role for Burroughs’ criminal activities.

One night at a club McKenna sees a woman being mistreated and loses his temper, killing the bully in full view of a number of people. Burroughs doesn’t have enough political pull to protect McKenna from the legal consequences, so he gives him a place to run to and enough money to pay for the trip.

The mistreated woman invites herself along and the two hesitantly bond during the drive to Jacksonville, Florida, discovering both had been damaged by their parents and exploited by others. Clayton Burroughs, Gareth’s youngest son and the conscience of the Burroughs family, finds McKenna to bring him back to Georgia. Things go sideways rapidly in a series of inhumanely violent events that miraculously converge to deliver hope and happiness for both of the main characters, who are amazing creations.

The definition of family, of friendship, and of loyalty is explored here in the context of the poverty and hopelessness of rural Appalachian Georgia. Beautifully and powerfully written, this book is compulsively readable despite the brutality and callousness much of it portrays. I was immediately immersed and it was hard to put the book down. The time shifts are straightforward here and easier to follow than I found the repeated chronological disruptions of Bull Mountain. Not an easy read but fans of southern noir will welcome this addition to the Bull Mountain canon.

 

·         Publisher: Minotaur Books (April 16, 2024)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎336 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1250835240

·         ISBN-13‏: ‎978-1250835246

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Q5yTU3

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

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

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: It Dies with You by Scott Blackburn

Scott Blackburn is an English instructor living in High Point, North Carolina. His debut novel, It Dies with You (Crooked Lane Books, 2022), is also set in North Carolina.

Hudson Miller was scraping a living as a bartender and a bouncer in Greensboro while he waited out a suspension from his boxing career. His boxing wasn’t much above mediocre but he worked at it and thought he could go somewhere eventually. A call from the police of Flint Creek, where he grew up, changed everything: his estranged father had been shot at his salvage yard on the edge of the community.

Hudson returned to the small town to learn that his father was killed in what appeared to be a burglary. Then the police discovered a cache of guns hidden in the office. Leland Miller had supplemented his income from used auto parts with trading illicit weapons, which increased the potential suspects and motives for the shooting.

The next surprise for Hudson was to learn that his father had left the property to him, hoping that he would continue to run it. Hudson knew nothing about automobile parts or the salvage business; he struck a deal with his father’s sole employee to run the yard while Hudson learned the ropes.

Within a few days the discovery of a body buried on the lot put both Hudson and his part-time employee under suspicion. The local police seemed only too willing to pin the crime on one or the other or both, even though no evidence pointing to either of them was found. They were outsiders and therefore eligible scapegoats in the small insular town. In self-defense Hudson starts looking into both murders and uncovers long-hidden secrets.

A fine piece of Southern noir. Fans of authors like Brian Panowich, Ace Atkins, and Chris Offutt will especially be interested.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Crooked Lane Books (June 7, 2022)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎304 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1643859390

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1643859392

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023 

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