{"id":2326,"date":"2017-07-25T18:20:28","date_gmt":"2017-07-26T01:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=2326"},"modified":"2017-07-25T18:20:28","modified_gmt":"2017-07-26T01:20:28","slug":"julia-keller-fast-falls-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/julia-keller-fast-falls-the-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Keller: Fast Falls the Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I have a real respect for writers who pull off the feat of condensing a book into the space of a single day. One of my favorite mysteries, Ngaio Marsh\u2019s Night at the Vulcan<\/em> (1951), takes place in the space of a single night, and while Ms. Keller is far removed from Ms. Marsh in time, theme, setting, and protagonist, they share a knack all good storytellers have. I think it\u2019s a matter of pacing, the right amount of being invested in the characters, and some sort of indefinable magic. Marsh\u2019s stories are lighter and more optimistic than Keller\u2019s, who sets hers in a far more brutal time and place.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sad to think that 21st<\/sup> century West Virginia is more brutal than post-WWII London, where Marsh set her novel, but there it is. Keller\u2019s central character, prosecutor Bell Elkins, is weary: weary of her non-stop job, and weary of the opioid crisis that\u2019s overtaken her little town of Acker\u2019s Gap. As the novel opens, there\u2019s an overdose in a gas station bathroom and things go from bad to worse as overdoses and fatalities pile up, apparently from heroin laced with another, even more deadly, drug.<\/p>\n

Balancing theme with narrative impetus \u2013 something that\u2019s aided by the short time frame \u2013 Keller\u2019s book is never didactic or preachy. She gets her message across just fine by showing, not telling. It\u2019s clear the overtaxed law enforcement, paramedic and medical personnel can\u2019t respond to every crime. They have to overlook the small in favor of the big and as overdoses pile up, it\u2019s all they can do to keep up and simply react.<\/p>\n

Keller isn\u2019t a storyteller without complexity, however, and within the pages of this novel are Bell\u2019s character, working relationships, family and romantic life as well as the story of a young officer named Jake. His possible romance, his life and the way he puts the pieces of the drug stories together take on an almost epic turn within the tight confines of this well paced and constructed novel.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a tight balance in this book between message – the opioid crisis, or the \u201cAppalachian Virus\u201d; narrative, and character. Significant events take place in Bell\u2019s life as well as Jake\u2019s but they are wrapped up in the story, and that\u2019s as it should be. Novels are stories: the characters keep us invested, the prose speaks to our hearts, and the situation (in this case) breaks them. I\u2019ve loved all of Ms. Keller\u2019s books, but brutal as this one is, it is probably my favorite, a true achievement of style and<\/em> substance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a real respect for writers who pull off the feat of condensing a book into the space of a single day. One of my favorite mysteries, Ngaio Marsh\u2019s Night at the Vulcan (1951), takes place in the space of a single night, and while Ms. Keller is far removed from Ms. Marsh in … 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":[21],"class_list":["post-2326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-legal-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326","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=2326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2328,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326\/revisions\/2328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}