Amazon.com Review
Penzler Pick, September 2000: T.R. Pearson is not known for writing mysteries, but this, his first novel in seven years, definitely falls into that category. Ray Tatum and his dog, Monroe, are on a journey to Hogarth, a small town in Virginia. Ray is taking the job of deputy sheriff in this small town, known for nothing except its proximity to the Appalachian Trail.
At first Ray spends his time with his colleagues, eating burgers and ignoring local drivers who exceed the speed limit while stopping tourists who drive three miles over it. However, Ray has no sooner settled into this bucolic existence when hikers on the A.P., as it is known, discover a skeleton of a man that has been just off the main trail for some time. Ray will have to solve this gruesome murder with help from a group of rusty law enforcement officers and a park ranger with the unlikely name of Kit Carson, a black woman whose filthy mouth has protected her from the local good ole boys she's forced to deal with every day.
In a parallel story, Paul Tatum, Ray's cousin, an insurance actuary from Roanoke, is called by the police and asked to come to New York City to identify a body believed to be that of his son. Paul hardly remembers he has a son, the result of a brief affair with the boy's mother. But he does carry around a faded picture of Troy as a little boy, so he sets out for New York knowing that there is little chance of him being able to identify the body. When he arrives, he discovers there is not much left of Troy, whose head is missing. With the help of Troy's would-be actress neighbor, Paul is able to make the identification, but then his troubles really begin. Accosted by two strange men named Giles and Jumbo, Paul finds himself transported via black limousine through the underbelly of New York. He finds out more about his son and his son's life than he ever wanted to know.
Ray and Paul Tatum are very different men, both caught up in worlds they hardly understand. Pearson's writing, funny and taut, will make it difficult for any reader to put down the story of these likable men. --Otto Penzler
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The talented Pearson has moved away from the zany Southern milieu of A Short History of a Small Place and other novels, but his work still resonates with whip-sharp dark humor. In this insightful, sardonic tale of self-discovery and self-deceit, two corpses, one in New York City and one in rural Virginia, send two cousins on separate but parallel quests. Ray Tatum is the new sheriff's deputy in sleepy Hogarth, Va., where some hikers discover a human skeleton, its skull bashed in, on the Appalachian Trail. Investigating the case with the help of a brassy female African-American park ranger named Kit Carson, Ray is forced to come to terms with the collapse of his marriage, his somewhat arid life and the nature of the backwoods town he calls home. Meanwhile, Ray's cousin Paul, an actuary in Roanoke, is summoned to Manhattan to identify what may be the remains of a young man named Troy, the son he never really knew. Paul soon finds himself imperiled in New York's drug underworld and in the thrall of Troy's actress girlfriend and of Giles, the deadly but charismatic criminal who once employed Troy. Both cousins must ultimately attempt the complex calculus of placing values on truth, justice, obligation and human life itself. Pearson writes evocatively of the sometimes cozy, sometimes sinister decadence of fringe communities both North and South, his descriptions enlivened by satirical details and witty editorializing. His suspenseful narrative alternates between the two plots; Ray recounts his tale in a wry omniscient voice, while Paul's first-person account is ruefully self-absorbed and idiosyncratic. These characters may not be as hilariously eccentric as some in Pearson's previous books, but they are equally Dand insidiouslyDmemorable. Author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
