The Cypress Grove [Audio Cassette]

James Sallis (Author), Alan Nebelthau (Narrator)

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: RecordedBooks (2008)
• ISBN-10: 1428163972
• ISBN-13: 978-1428163973
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, lyrical and fascinating, June 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Cypress Grove (Hardcover)

James Sallis unfolds Cypress Grove like reverse origami, showing the reader only one tantalizing piece at a time. In this beautifully-written book, two mysteries are gradually described: the present-time, ostensible mystery (a ritualistic murder of a homeless man in a small town) and the mystery of the detective himself, Turner, and how he came to be where and who he is. The former we simply watch in fascination, as we might a complex clockwork. The latter we are drawn inexorably into. We spiral down with Turner through the unavoidable tragedies of his life, only to emerge somewhat unexpectedly into the hopeful light of the ending. This is possibly Sallis' most openly optimistic book, but it loses none of his trademark style, seamlessly blending the hard-boiled with the sublime.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A master storyteller struts his stuff, January 24, 2006

By 

Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cypress Grove (Hardcover)

James Sallis tells stories. Wonderful stories. Rich in character, complex in plot and ultimately satisfying.

In "Cypress Groves," we first meet Turner, a man who quickly reveals in his own thoughts his past: unwilling, but competent soldier; a Memphis cop who helped until a fateful day; then a convict; next a therapist and finally a man sitting on the porch of his cabin in the rural nowhere.

Lonnie Bates pulls up one day in his jeep bearing a bottle of Wild Turkey. Sallis's mastery of storytelling and dialog is wonderfully demonstrated as Bates moves slowly to the real business at hand: enlisting Turner's in solving a local homicide.

The characters are meticulously drawn. Flashbacks illuminate Turner's life, a device many authors mangle, but not Sallis. We meet Don Lee, deputy to Sheriff Bates. Val Bjorn, a lawyer for the state. The Mayor. The local, curmudgeonly doctor who doubles as coroner. Sallis beings this rustic locale to life with the small wrongs villagers bring to the sheriff's attention. This is not pulse-pounding adventure: you feel the slow pace of a small town where not much happens other than people being born, living out their lives and than dying. In this case, the victim, not a local, unknown meets a particularly gruesome untimely end.

Bit by bit, Turner uncovers the facts. At heart a mystery, Sallis turns it into a brilliant tapestry of lives lived and unlived.

The plot never misses a beat. No need for leaps of faith with Sallis: every tiny bit falls into place in due time, including a surprising ending that had its beginnings decades earlier and thousands of miles away.

Save this one for a quiet night or two of reading, preferably with the lights turned down low and maybe some good music in the background. Sallis's storytelling is something to be savored slowly, like a fine wine.

Jerry

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars trying to get lost, February 25, 2008

By 

Grateful Gramma (Southwest Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cypress Grove (Paperback)

Ex-cop, ex-con, ex-therapist Turner thinks he's hidden himself away in an isolated cabin in a rural area of Tennessee. He appears to have succeeded, until Lonnie Bates, the local sheriff, arrives on his doorstep.

Now you would suppose that the sheriff wants to check up on Turner, maybe to warn him to walk the straight and narrow. But, no, the sheriff comes to ask his help in solving an unusual and ritualistic murder.

Back and forth we go through the pieces of Turner's life, building a picture of his past, while he puts together the pieces of the crime. In the process, we watch as he becomes re-engaged with life and other people.

Recommended.