{"id":1757,"date":"2015-08-30T13:01:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T20:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1757"},"modified":"2015-08-30T13:01:13","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T20:01:13","slug":"julia-keller-last-ragged-breath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/julia-keller-last-ragged-breath\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Keller: Last Ragged Breath"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LastRaggedBreath\"<\/a>Julia Keller is using the slow, steady approach toward becoming one of the best crime writers in the business. Some people rocket to the top, some build their way up more gradually \u2013 it\u2019s a real pleasure watching Keller\u2019s ascent. In her fourth novel (to my mind, her strongest yet) she focuses on the murder of a developer in tiny Acker\u2019s Gap, West Virginia. The dead man had been campaigning to buy up land for a shiny new resort in Acker\u2019s Gap, where, like much of Appalachia, the scenery is gorgeous and free, but the life is hard and brutal with a tanking economy, thanks to the demise of mining.<\/p>\n

Threaded into this story is the backstory of Royce Dillard, a recluse who lives with his seven dogs and rarely ventures into town. He\u2019s quickly arrested for the crime \u2013 the body was found on his property \u2013 but his history makes prosecutor Bell Elkins dig just a little deeper. He\u2019s a survivor of a terrible 1972 flood that swept away a good part of the town, killing hundreds. Little Royce was thrown to safety by his father and he\u2019s been regularly interviewed on the anniversary of the disaster ever since. (The flood is a real one, the Buffalo Creek disaster. Ed.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes Keller\u2019s storytelling threads can become too diffuse and numerous \u2013 I thought that was a bit of an issue in her last novel, Summer of the Dead<\/em>; but in this novel she\u2019s tightened her storytelling skein and drawn her story threads more closely together, creating a good mystery along with her powerful narrative.<\/p>\n

Bell, her protagonist, is a county prosecutor and she\u2019s long ago left her fancy Georgetown law firm to return to her home in the mountains, becoming an integral part of the community. Just as integral was her friendship with the sheriff, Nick Fogelsong, but Nick has retired and taken a private security job. Bell misses Nick, she\u2019s angry with him, and she\u2019s not sure how the new sheriff, a young woman, is going to work out. Keller beautifully portrays the many layers of emotion Bell is experiencing.<\/p>\n

Keller is also an absolute master as providing a three dimensional view of her characters, as well as a well reasoned and explicated look at all sides of whatever she\u2019s chosen to write about. In this novel the less sexy back topic is corporate responsibility, but she makes it memorable and gripping all the same. She gives both sides to the views on mining; on development; and on the effect of both on Bell\u2019s particular small town. There\u2019s an amazing scene inside a mine shaft that illustrates every point she wants to make, as she shows, not tells, the reader her point of view.<\/p>\n

The magical spark that lifts these novels above only polemic or only a great story or only a great setting (though all three of these things are true of her books) are her characters and the depth and heart she gives to them. I can say I have been as moved by Keller\u2019s books as I have been by other favorite authors of mine \u2013 William Kent Krueger, Louise Penny, and Julia Spencer-Fleming. That\u2019s high praise and it\u2019s well earned not only by Keller\u2019s entire body of work but by this particular novel, which is one of the reads of 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julia Keller is using the slow, steady approach toward becoming one of the best crime writers in the business. Some people rocket to the top, some build their way up more gradually \u2013 it\u2019s a real pleasure watching Keller\u2019s ascent. In her fourth novel (to my mind, her strongest yet) she focuses on the murder … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-1757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-psychological"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}