I originally checked out this audio book on Overdrive for my husband and I to listen to together on a trip we were taking. It turns out, we weren't driving that far and we ended up talking, so I just listened to it over the course of the next few weeks.
I don't normally read mysteries but I have discovered that I sometimes like watching some mystery or crime tv shows (as long as they're not too dark or creepy.) This falls into that same category.
The main draw of this story is that it's set in semi-rural contemporary North Carolina. I love the way she weaves real life seeming lore and folksy personalities into her story. The story is interesting because it moves between three narrators:
- flashback to 1940s - protagonist Deborah Knott's mother Sue- written from the first person perspective
- 3rd person narrative from the perspective of Deborah
- omniscient narrator? - following Dwight (Deborah's Policeman husband following crime tales.)
The story unpacks a mysterious friendship of Sue's that changed the course of her life, whilst solving a contemporary murder that is semi-linked to the other story.
The main things I got out of this story are: a desire to experience fishing and the subsequent deep frying of stuff that follows, a whimsical yearning to meet my relatives at a locally owned barbecue restaurant where afterwards we all play our bluegrass instruments and dance, and a visceral nostalgia for small town life.
This story is also narrated by the author, so there was definitely the dialectical accuracy. Love it.
Oh, spoiler alert. I was sure that the abused wife, finally up and killed her husband after one smack too many, but I was dead wrong.
