Crooked Letter Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

I don't normally enjoy Crime-Drama but this was an enjoyable read.  Silas Jones and Larry Ott have known each other since their late 1970s childhood when Silas lived with his mother in a cabin on land owned by Larry's father. At school they could barely acknowledge one another, Silas being black and Larry white, but they secretly formed a bond hunting, fishing, and just being boys in the woods. When a girl goes missing after going on a date with Larry, he is permanently marked as dangerous, despite the lack of evidence linking him to her disappearance, and the two boys go their separate ways. Twenty-five years later, Silas is the local constable, and when another girl disappears, Larry, an auto mechanic with few customers and fewer friends, is once again a person of interest. The Southern atmosphere is rich, and I love the languid shifting from present to past.  I don't typically enjoy crime-dramas but, this one has my attention.  It is an easy read that has drawn me in from the beginning pages unfolding Larry's quiet simple life on the farm and how he made a portable pen so he could move all his chickens to a different patch of the farm every day to eat bugs.  I love how it captures the South and the character development.

Rating: 4.3 Recommend