Publishers Weekly
In Sallis's beautifully written second book to feature Turner, an ex-cop and ex-con (after 2004's Cypress Grove), Turner is working as a deputy sheriff in Cripple Creek, Tenn., a small town where crime is minor and strictly local. Then, late one night, Sheriff Don Lee arrests drunk driver Judd Kurtz with $200,000 in a nylon gym bag hidden in the trunk of his car. Kurtz breaks out of the town jail, seriously wounding two officers in the process. Turner's investigation leads him to an organized crime connection in nearby Memphis that enmeshes him in a web of escalating violence. Sallis's working method is to simply let the cameras roll, depicting the lives of Turner, his banjo-picking girlfriend, his eccentric co-workers and Cripple Creek itself, as everyone goes about their business. Small moments are recorded as faithfully as large, and stories from earlier days mix with the ongoing crimes and misdemeanors of the present. A structural sleight of hand toward the end may at first confuse but is pretty amazing once the reader catches on. Author tour. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Dodging trouble, ex-cop, ex-con J. Turner has run to one of those small towns that time forgot (Cypress Groves, 2003), but trouble finds him, since, as Turner himself likes to say, "No one is exempt."When Sheriff Don Lee and Deputy Turner check out the trunk of a spaced-out speeder, they find a stolen $200,000. Soon enough, the rightful owners-hard cases from Memphis with little interest in finesse-come after it. Gunned down, Sheriff Lee hovers near death, and Turner, whose unwritten code is set in stone, sees no choice but retaliation. In Memphis, he calls in favors, generates the requisite intelligence, takes out a couple of bad guys and heads home, confident that the deadly game of vendetta he's started will continue till most of the participants have checked out. He's right, but he's not entirely prepared for retaliation from his antagonists, people schooled in an old and bloody tradition. They understand that lasting hurt is best derived from collateral damage, and that Turner, formidable though he is, has more vulnerable loved ones. As usual with Sallis, you don't get a lot of plot. What you get instead are characters to engage the mind and heart and some of the most flavorful writing crime fiction has to offer ("cordovan shoes so highly polished it looked like he was walking on two violins").
NOVEMBER 2008 - AudioFile
John Turner, ex-cop, ex-con, Vietnam vet, and former therapist, makes his way to Cripple Creek to lick his wounds and keep a low profile. In the second novel featuring Turner, he’s back in law enforcement as a sheriff’s deputy. When a prisoner escapes from the local jail, Turner tracks him to Memphis and runs into problems with the Mob. In spite of frequent flashbacks into Turner’s past life and violent episodes in the present, narrator Alan Nebelthau turns in a low-key, down-to-earth performance. He doesn’t DO character voices, he BECOMES characters. Nebelthau offers a thoughtful, perceptive Turner, whether he’s spending time with his lover, Val, or fighting the corruption of organized crime. Spare, artful prose combined with an honest, understated performance makes this must listening. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine