Highbrow Magazine - crime books https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/crime-books en Murder Comes to the Holler in Chris Offutt’s ‘Killing Hills’ https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/17097-murder-comes-holler-chris-offutt-s-killing-hills <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 12/01/2021 - 15:20</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1woods_woman-pikist.jpg?itok=YCbvtNfp"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1woods_woman-pikist.jpg?itok=YCbvtNfp" width="480" height="321" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>The Killing Hills</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>By Chris Offutt</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Grove Press</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>245 pages</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">An old man goes out scavenging for ginseng in the rugged hills of eastern Kentucky and stumbles upon the body of a local woman. Thus begins <em>The Killing Hills, </em>Chris Offutt’s new novel, set like so much of his work in the remote enclaves of Appalachia. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Mick Hardin, a military homicide investigator on leave from government service, has come home to try and salvage a failing marriage. He agrees to take part in the murder investigation led by his sister Linda, recently promoted to sheriff of Rocksalt. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">From there, the body count quickly escalates.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Is the killer Curtis Tanner, arrested by an FBI agent on a tip called in by a local politician? Or is the perpetrator one of the many brothers of the victim, whose mother helps oversee a local drug-running operation that traces back to organized crime in Detroit?</span></span><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Told in unadorned prose, <em>The Killing Hills </em>is a tribute to one man’s incorruptible quest for justice and also an elegy for a vanishing way of life. In small towns like Rocksalt, everyone knows everyone else’s business—not always a good thing—and as Hardin’s unofficial inquiry gathers steam, it becomes clear the murder of Nonnie Johnson is intertwined with slash-and-burn rural politics and the misdeeds of some truly bad individuals. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/offuttbook.jpg" style="height:600px; width:411px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Offutt is something of a poet laureate of the Kentucky hills. He knows the landscape in and out, and some of the best descriptive writing in this novel captures the feel of that countryside, hollers, broken-down houses, and all: </span></span></p> <p><br /> <span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“Wind and weather had stripped the old tarpaper roof to shreds. Someone had set a washtub over the chimney, but the bottom had rusted through and the metal loop sat like a giant wedding ring around the mortared rock. A copperhead sunned itself at the edge of the shade as if too weary to go any farther. Mick nodded to the snake, which flicked its tongue toward the human scent.”</span></span><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Hardin is a compelling, if troubled, protagonist. Serving in Army CID, he’s often overseas for months at a time. Back in Kentucky, he finds a pregnant wife and some painful questions about the soon-to-be-born child’s paternity. And he’s trying hard to assist his sister Linda in what escalates into a multi-homicide investigation.  </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Hardin covers a lot of ground—both figuratively and metaphorically—in a novel whose timeframe is a matter of a few days. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">At times, it feels as though some depth of character was sacrificed in the interests of moving the story along. More could have been done, for example, with Vernon and Freddie, the “Detroit Muscle,” called in to surreptitiously observe the ongoing murder investigation. Hardin rather too quickly eliminates the threat posed by these men, leaving the reader to wonder: What if the two thugs had been a little smarter and more resourceful?<br /> <br /> Hardin’s internal struggle with both his wife and what’s become of the holler help enrich the story. Soon after learning about her affair, he stands outside his pickup truck and ruminates on the damage inflicted on his marriage. Then he turns to a discarded engine block in the bed of his truck:</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1hills_7rystan-pixabay.jpg" style="height:450px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“Under the bench seat, he found a heavy crescent wrench rusted tight at the knurl. He lowered the gate again and beat on the Ford engine block in the bed, striking it over and over until his arm hurt and his shoulder ached. The jaw of the wrench broke from impact and flew across the dirt lot. He climbed into the back of the truck, crouched behind the engine, and pushed. His legs quivered with the effort. He felt the strain in his arms and his back. The engine scooted along the metal with a terrible sound, gouging furrows in the bed and the gate. With a final effort, he pushed it off the truck, the momentum carrying him with it. He landed on top of the engine, his body draped over it like cloth. He wanted to cry but didn’t know how. It was a like a switch hidden inside him, out of reach.”<br /> <br /> A blunt, plainspoken man, Mick Hardin can only express his emotions through physical actions like this.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>The Killing Hills </em>doesn’t pack the same punch as the author’s previous novel, <em>Country Dark</em>, named one of my <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9632-best-books" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">top books of 2018</a>. But for mastery of place and plot, Chris Offutt’s work is always worth reading.  </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Lee Polevoi is </em>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic</em>. <em>His new novel, </em>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash<em>, will be published in 2022. </em> </strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Sources:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--</em><a href="https://www.pikist.com/free-photo-sfexf" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pikist</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)                  </em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Grove Press</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--</em><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/scenery-landscape-kentucky-nature-2531073/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pixabay</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/chris-offutt" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Chris Offutt</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/killing-hills" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Killing Hills</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new fiction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/kentucky" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">kentucky</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/crime-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">crime books</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mystery-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mystery books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/kentucky-hills" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">kentucky hills</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 01 Dec 2021 20:20:03 +0000 tara 10772 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/17097-murder-comes-holler-chris-offutt-s-killing-hills#comments A Brutal Crime and the Unraveling of Truth From Fiction https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11923-brutal-crime-and-unraveling-truth-fiction <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 03/03/2021 - 18:53</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1coldcase.jpg?itok=aK8TSupk"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1coldcase.jpg?itok=aK8TSupk" width="300" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>When a horrific event—in this case murder--touches your life, how do you handle it?  In writer Stephanie Kane’s case, first you fictionalize it and then because it has haunted every waking hour, you publish <em>Cold Case Story</em><strong>, </strong>outlining the scores of details behind the crime, as you see it. </p> <p>Based on the brutal murder of a housewife in the Denver suburbs in 1973, that housewife was the mother of Stephanie Kane’s fiancé.  Kane, born in Brooklyn, was a freshman at the University of Colorado at the time. The Saturday morning Betty Frye was killed, Kane and her boyfriend received an awkward call from Betty.  The couple were getting married in two weeks and didn’t know if she was coming to the wedding.  Two hours later, Betty was dead.</p> <p>For almost 30 years, Kane thought about the phone call.  But that wasn’t all that consumed her thoughts.  Later that fateful Saturday, the couple were visited by Betty’s husband Duane, who brought them a six-pack of beer, sporting a head bruise, and wearing an uncharacteristic dirty shirt.  As these and other details began to accumulate during the investigation, did she think that Duane was the killer?  Not exactly. And no one asked about what she observed that afternoon.  But she never doubted it. As for Duane Frye, in spite of mounting evidence of guilt, charges were dropped because of a few contradictory points.</p> <p>In the ensuing years, after graduating from law school, Kane became a corporate partner at a Denver law firm, then a criminal defense attorney. An award-winning mystery writer, in 2001 she published <em>Quiet Time</em>, a fictionalized version of Betty’s murder.  It wasn’t until she was contacted by a cold-case cop in 2005 that she was forced to reexamine her role, and in January 2007, Frye was rearrested. </p> <p>Robert McKee, a leading teacher of screenwriting technique, is frequently quoted in <em>Cold Case Story</em>. “Text is the sensory surface of a work of art—what people see, say and hear.  Subtext is the life hidden beneath the surface.”  It is that subtext, the mountain of details that Kane lays out for the reader that make her account so riveting.  We are placed front and center from the first accounts of the crime through the reopened investigation.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2coldcase.jpg" style="height:500px; width:500px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>A common instance of crime scene staging in domestic homicides is when the spouse is moved to another location.  According to Richard Walton, author of <em>Cold Case Homicides: Practical Investigative Technique,</em> if the body is found at the unaltered scene, “the perpetrator will immediately become the primary suspect.” </p> <p>In this case, Betty was found face down in the garage with garbage cans filled with an unlikely collection of the so-called burglar’s loot and a couple of TVs nearby. Sendle, the lead cop in the original investigation, told Kane that he knew the killer was no burglar from the beginning.  Frye’s coverup was sloppy.  Such items as an open bottle of shampoo, a pair of clip-on RayBans, an electric shaver and three electric clocks were found in the cans.  The clocks, the most damning of evidence, were unplugged from the walls, showing the time of the murder.</p> <p>Another fascinating detail were the RayBans.  Why would a burglar steal clip-on sunglasses?  When Frye was interviewed, he was asked if he wore sunglasses.  Yes, he said, reaching into his shirt pocket.  Sendle said he would never forget the look on the man’s face when he saw they weren’t there.</p> <p>Wendell Rudacille is an investigator and polygraph examiner, who wrote a text analysis, <em>Identifying Lies in Disguise</em>.  In 2013 when Kane went through the Frye case files, she read his study.  For Betty’s 44<sup>th</sup> birthday, Frye gave her a secondhand convertible.  The morning she was murdered, and he brought the car in to the Chevron dealership, he referred to it has “my car.” Rudacille was convinced from that statement that Frye already knew she was dead.</p> <p>There are many such incidences in the overall investigation that grip the reader’s imagination and make this follow-up study to the novel compelling.  It is Kane’s overriding need to confront the truth that matters.  Kane breathes convincing details into the real-life relatives and other characters whose lives were overturned by the killing. </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3coldcase_linnaea_mallette_-_publicdomainpictures.jpg" style="height:398px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>We learn that Frye’s daughter posted a $100,000 dollar bond for his release, while Betty’s sister was elated at the case’s reopening.  Shortly before her death, Frye’s mother told her daughter that her son had confessed to her about the murder. That and other evidence from the court records solved the 33-year-old case. </p> <p>In 2013 Frye committed suicide.  Kane tellingly includes an 1830 quote from the great lawyer Daniel Webster: “There is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.”</p> <p>I still wanted to know if <em>Cold Case Story</em> was the final chapter of this saga for Stephanie Kane.</p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong>:  Do you feel now that now you are finished with not only the fictional account but the factual story of the murder itself, that you have permanently closed this chapter of your life? Memory is the one thing a writer carries with herself for a lifetime, one of the tools of the trade, you might say.  Are there any lingering doubts or do you feel it has been a complete catharsis for you?  </p> <p><strong>Stephanie Kane</strong>: From the day Betty was murdered in 1973, I’ve been driven by one thing: the need to know what happened. To come to terms with my own role in her death, I had to know who killed Betty, and how and why she was killed. You can’t come to accept what you don’t know. </p> <p>Catharsis came in the 1990s, with <em>Quiet Time</em>’s first draft, which I wrote in a dozen first-person voices to capture what I imagined others thought or felt. Acceptance took much longer, but each accounting brought me a step closer to what I needed to know. The information dictated the format, but <em>Cold Case Story </em>comes full circle. Drawing from transcripts, it quotes people whose voices I’d tried to summon. Their real words erased my doubts.</p> <p>Each time I rewrote Betty’s story, once details were on the page they began to fade. I no longer had to remember them. The record endures, but I’m not the recordkeeper. Now the story belongs to whoever reads it.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Sandra Bertrand is</em></strong><strong> Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief art critic.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p><em>--Courtesy of the author</em></p> <p><em>--Linnaea Mallette (</em><a href="https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=264270&amp;picture=haunted-house" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>PublicDomainPictures.net</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/cold-case-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cold Case Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/stephanie-kane" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Stephanie Kane</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/murder-mysteries" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">murder mysteries</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new fiction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/crime-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">crime books</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Sandra Bertrand</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 03 Mar 2021 23:53:18 +0000 tara 10202 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11923-brutal-crime-and-unraveling-truth-fiction#comments ‘Resistance Man’ Is Latest Addition to Martin Walker’s ‘Bruno’ Series https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4082-resistance-man-latest-addition-martin-walker-s-bruno-series <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 06/20/2014 - 08:48</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1martinwalker.jpg?itok=R0EGR4G4"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1martinwalker.jpg?itok=R0EGR4G4" width="312" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>The Resistance Man</strong></p> <p><strong>By Martin Walker</strong></p> <p><strong>Knopf</strong></p> <p><strong>313 pages</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>In the opening pages of the latest addition to Martin Walker’s “Bruno, Chief of Police” series, the reader encounters a swarm of characters: Napoleon and Josephine, Blanco, Balzac and Father Sentout, only the last of whom is <em>homo sapiens </em>(the others are geese, fowl and Basset hound puppy, respectively). It’s a portent of the many, but not exclusively human characters still to come.</p> <p> </p> <p>Bruno, as he’s known, is Chief of Police Benoit Courreges, a resident of the village of St. Denis in southwestern France. <em>The Resistance Man </em>is the sixth in a series featuring this likeable policeman who, when he’s not pursuing investigations into local crimes, whips up lovingly described meals for his lady friends and other citizens of St. Denis:</p> <p> </p> <p>“First, he heated a pan of sunflower oil for beignets. Then he readied a bowl of spicy salsa, removed from the fridge a pot of Stephane’s <em>aillou </em>(fresh cheese flavored with herbs and garlic), spooned it into a bowl and took both bowls out to the garden with some small plates and a pile of paper napkins. Back inside, he dipped the sliced zucchini into the light batter he had made earlier and then eased them into the hot fat. Once they were brown and crisp, he took the beignets out with a slotted spoon, sprinkled salt onto them and slipped in a fresh batch to fry. He took the first plateful out to his guests and left Pamela to show Valentoux how to hold the hot beignet in a paper napkin and then decide whether to smear it with salsa or <em>aillou</em>.” </p> <p> </p> <p>The story is set in motion by the death of a former World War II resistance fighter. In rapid succession, Bruno is called on to investigate a rash of summer home burglaries, as well as the murder of a gay British antiques dealer. As these investigations unfold, we meet several important people in Bruno’s personal life, including Pamela, his on-and-off-again lover, an old flame named Isabelle and a forensic specialist, Fabriola, who assists him in his police work.</p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1alley%20%28Nicky%20Fernandes%20Flickr%29.jpg" style="height:418px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>It’s a large, not to say unwieldy, cast of characters, especially for those of us new to the Bruno series (there are numerous murder and burglary suspects to keep track of, too). Bruno himself emerges as an engaging figure, but the same can’t be said for all of the personalities crowding around him. Each seems to serve a purpose in (gently) nudging the plot forward, but most lack a distinctive presence to set them apart from the others.</p> <p> </p> <p>Evidently it’s part of the charm of the “Bruno, Chief of Police” series that the story unfolds at a leisurely pace, interrupted by descriptions of elegant and elaborately prepared meals. But this narrative technique is a double-edged sword; when readers are obliged to pause and admire Bruno’s culinary wizardry, the momentum stalls and it grows difficult to retain interest in the many convoluted subplots. There’s also a distressing tendency to over-explain and state themes rather too baldly, as in the police chief’s meditations during a funeral honoring the dead Resistance fighter:</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2martinwalker.jpg" style="height:354px; width:251px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>“It was fitting, Bruno believed, that the young people were here, to understand what it had meant to France to be vanquished and occupied by foreign troops who did not bother to hide their contempt for the conquered. And it was right for those youngsters to know that in a nation like France, no defeat was ever final, no fate was ever foreordained, that even amid the ruins and corpses of defeat, rebirth and recovery and renewal could always come.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Passages like these, coupled with dialogue that states (and then re-states) facts of the different cases but without any particular flair, suggest that <em>The Resistance Man </em>isn’t the best novel for readers new to the series. On the other hand, Walker’s obvious love and knowledge of the region shine throughout, which should please those in search of a story set against the bucolic and timeless world of southern France.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Lee Polevoi, </em>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic, is completing a new novel, </em>The Confessions of Gabriel Ash.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bruno" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bruno</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/resistance-man" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the resistance man</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/martin-walker" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">martin walker</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">books</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">fiction</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/crime-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">crime books</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/literature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">literature</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/france" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">France</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bruno-series" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">bruno series</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 20 Jun 2014 12:48:07 +0000 tara 4875 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4082-resistance-man-latest-addition-martin-walker-s-bruno-series#comments