{"id":647,"date":"2012-07-17T13:34:14","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T19:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=647"},"modified":"2012-07-17T13:34:14","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T19:34:14","slug":"julia-keller-a-killing-in-the-hills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/julia-keller-a-killing-in-the-hills\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Keller: A Killing in the Hills"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here\u2019s some advice: run, don\u2019t walk, to the stack of Julia Keller\u2019s first crime novel, A Killing in the Hills, <\/em>and stash away a first edition for yourself.\u00a0 I rarely make this prediction but I am predicting Keller\u2019s career will be a long one.\u00a0 This is a wonderful first novel, strongly reminiscent of some of Laura Lippman\u2019s best work \u2013 her stand-alone crime novels that, like this book, are about so much more.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A Killing in the Hills<\/em> is set in the tiny, and fictional, Acker\u2019s Gap, West Virginia, but the assured writing and sense of place make clear that while technically Acker\u2019s Gap is not a real place, the town Keller is describing and writing about most definitely is real.\u00a0 The book kicks off with the kind of random and senseless shooting that we have become all too familiar with recently:\u00a0 three old men are gunned down in the middle of a busy lunch time at a fast food restaurant in Acker\u2019s Gap.<\/p>\n

Sitting near the old men is Carla, the teenage daughter of Belfa Elkins, the county prosecutor.\u00a0 When Bell (she doesn\u2019t go by Belfa) hears the news, she\u2019s at first unaware that Carla had been in the restaurant.\u00a0 When she discovers that she was there, what follows is a dance perhaps familiar to the parent of any teenager:\u00a0 the efforts of the teenager not to lose face, the efforts of the parent to keep the child safe, no matter what.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more, though, because even as Bell hugs and comforts her daughter she also thinks:\u00a0 \u201cShe was a mother, but she was also a prosecuting attorney, and on the stem of her softly winding maternal thoughts\u2026They\u2019d get the bastard who did this.\u00a0 There\u2019d be no mistakes in compiling the prosecution\u2019s case.\u201d <\/em>This harsh give and take colors the mother-daughter relationship, as well as the story unfolding in the novel.\u00a0 Bell\u2019s quest to do her job as a mother and to do her job as a prosecuting attorney don\u2019t always intersect, something which makes her daughter angry.<\/p>\n

There is more than one thread in this complex look at the way the law works in this tiny town, but in the end all the threads seem to have the same theme:\u00a0 what would you do to protect the person you love most in all the world?\u00a0 The heartbreaking answers at the end of the novel had me in tears.<\/p>\n

While Keller\u2019s prose is more workmanlike that poetic, that part of the puzzle will probably come in time.\u00a0 What she does possess in spades is a compelling way of telling a story and a wonderful hand with characterizations.\u00a0 Not since Sharyn McCrumb\u2019s early Ballad novels (I\u2019m thinking specifically of The Hangman\u2019s Beautiful Daughter<\/em> and She Walks These Hills<\/em>) have I read a book where this area of the country is so well written about, warts and all.\u00a0 It\u2019s a loving but clear eyed look at the dichotomy of West Virginia\u2019s physical beauty, and its ugly poverty.<\/p>\n

The subtext of course is drugs \u2013 the drugs that have ripped their way through our culture, disabling and crippling many, many people, and leaving a destructive and grief-filled wake in the form of the drug user\u2019s family.\u00a0 Bell is focused on eradicating this problem, even more so when the shooting at the restaurant seems to be tied to the drug business.\u00a0 As Bell bulls her way through the case, sometimes leaving Carla in the breach to fend for herself, emotionally and otherwise, she\u2019s also forced to confront some demons from her own past.<\/p>\n

The backstory in this novel is a very rich one and while it never overwhelms the story, it sometimes makes the story telling tapestry so dense you have to step back for a moment and take a breather.\u00a0 What makes the book truly memorable is the way Keller is able to wind things up, tying off some threads while leaving others open for discussion in future novels.\u00a0 I hope those will be forthcoming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s some advice: run, don\u2019t walk, to the stack of Julia Keller\u2019s first crime novel, A Killing in the Hills, and stash away a first edition for yourself.\u00a0 I rarely make this prediction but I am predicting Keller\u2019s career will be a long one.\u00a0 This is a wonderful first novel, strongly reminiscent of some of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-psychological"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647","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=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}