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Summary
Summary
In the tradition of James Dickey's Deliverance and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, bestselling author and award-winning poet James W. Hall has written a literary novel that is also an intricate, suspenseful mystery-a story blending the macabre and the historic, the genteel and the aberrant, the violent and the heroic. With his signature mix of brooding atmosphere and compelling action, Hall takes readers deep into America's own Heart of Darkness.Policewoman Charlotte Monroe has cop instincts. Scratch that. There isn't a name for the gift she has, something that borders on psychic, an ability to read people's faces and body language like the morning headlines-to size up their intentions and act before they do.It's a real ability that the FBI is trying to teach to its agents. The bureau is spending millions so they'll know the difference between a slightly raised eyebrow and a faint twitch of the lip. But Charlotte's a natural with god-given abilities, and the Feds want her in the worst way, maybe even to the point of blackmail.Still, Charlotte's gift fails to prepare her for the stranger who shows up on her doorstep with a chilling warning for her husband, a mysterious note scrawled in Cherokee hieroglyphics and a promise of things to come: "You're Next."The warning becomes more ominous as Charlotte and her husband, Parker, discover the complex truth about this man, including his position on the FBI Most Wanted list and his connection to their family.When Charlotte's deeply troubled teenage daughter runs away to join the charismatic outlaw, she follows the two of them into the spectral mists of the Great Smoky Mountains-and to the beating heart of a 150-year-old blood feud that will endanger everything she loves and challenge everything she believes.
Author Notes
James W. Hall was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. After graduating from Eckerd College in Florida and earning additional degrees from John Hopkins University and the University of Utah, He began to write poetry. Among his published books of poetry are The Lady from the Dark Green Hills, The Mating Reflex, and False Statements.
Following his successful 20-year career as a poet, he decided it was time to switch gears and try his hand at writing fictional crime novels. He published his first novel, Under Cover of Daylight, in 1987. Since then he has written over 15 novels including the Thorn Mysteries series, Bones of Coral, Hard Aground, Rough Draft, and Forests of the Night. Several of his novels have been optioned for film and he has written screenplays for two of those projects. He is a professor of literature and writing at Florida International University.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Police detective Charlotte Monroe arrives home in Coral Gables, Fla., one evening to find her lawyer husband, Parker, and their teenage daughter, Gracey, chatting amiably with a man she's never met, Jacob Bright Sky Panther, the Cherokee nephew of one of Parker's old friends. The always observant Charlotte recognizes Panther's face-he's number eight on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Before the SWAT team can arrive, Panther has fled with Gracey in tow, and this fast-paced, entertaining thriller has kicked into high gear, taking the reader to the mountains of North Carolina and deep into the pasts of Panther, Parker and the entire Cherokee Nation. The plot linking these characters is, predictably, convoluted and over the top, but it's compelling, with action scenes that bristle with visceral intensity. But Hall's real strength is characterization. Charlotte is a fascinating protagonist with an unusually valuable gift-an unparalleled ability to interpret facial expressions-but her role is more that of concerned parent and troubled wife (one hopes her investigative prowess will be a future novel's focus). Nearly everyone has real depth, and the author's appreciation for history and its reverberations adds further complexity. Agent, Richard Pine. (Jan. 19) Forecast: Blurbs from Russell Banks and Reynolds Price will help attract readers of literary fiction who usually avoid genre titles. Author tour. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
An uneven thriller about Cherokee that never fully mines its rich potential. The prolific Hall (Off the Chart, 2003, etc.) starts with an intriguing prologue. In 1838, Tsali, a Cherokee, defies Army orders to move his family from North Carolina's mountains to Oklahoma. Fearing a wider rebellion, the Army bargains with Tsali: surrender yourself and family to a firing squad and the rest of your tribe may remain on their land. Tsali agrees, an act that, Hall promises, will bring consequences 150 years later. Unfortunately, what actually does follow, in present-day Miami and then in the hills of North Carolina, is rather flat and predictable. In Palm Beach, Cherokee Bright Sky Jacob Panther, initially promising as an edgy villain, buys a deadly venom that he plans to use in an assassination. Panther then warns police officer Charlotte Monroe and her husband Parker, a lawyer, that they're in grave danger. In one of several well-done action scenes, Panther makes off with the Monroes' teenaged daughter, Gracey, who suffers schizophrenic tendencies. With Panther shunted aside, the Monroes and other mostly one-dimensional characters carry the burden of the story. Parker admits to Charlotte that Jacob is actually his son, the love child from an affair Parker had years ago with a Cherokee woman while at summer camp in North Carolina. That same summer ended when someone burned down the camp, killing its owner, Parker's father. The crime appears linked to ongoing, threatening tensions between the Cherokees and white settlers, and the Monroes head to North Carolina to unravel a not-very-tangled plot. Hall stints on mountain atmosphere, though the actions of one of his characters will make readers think twice about petting poodles. Inconsistent writing: tight action scenes offset by thin characters and purplish prose ("Her complexion was as flawless as warm crème brulee"). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Hall's Thorn novels continue to set the standard for Florida noir, but his stand-alone thrillers are equally distinguished. His latest stand-alone is no exception. It begins in Florida, where Coral Gables cop Charlotte Monroe and her defense lawyer husband, Parker, live with their schizophrenic teenage daughter, Gracey. The past reaches out and grabs the present in a deadly stranglehold when Jacob Panther, apparently related to one of Parker's childhood friends, turns up on the Monroes' doorstep and walks away with Gracey. Turns out Panther is on the FBI's most-wanted list. So begins a high-energy chase into the mountains of North Carolina, where Parker spent summers at his father's camp on sacred Cherokee soil. Hall can do all-stops-out action as well as anyone, but his plots always ride on a remarkably textured harmonic structure built of multidimensional characters with rich inner lives. This time the plot has multiple levels of its own, the seemingly simple manhunt immersing Charlotte, Parker, and Gracey in a generational feud with roots deep in the Cherokee nation and with potentially lethal connections to Parker's family. But playing against the main plot of saving Gracey are various questions of identity that plague the characters, both major and minor, and that frustrate any facile attempt to sort good guys from bad. A first-rate literary thriller, in the tradition of Stephen Hunter's Dirty White Boys (1994) and Wayne Johnson's recent The Devil You Know BKL F 15 04. --Bill Ott Copyright 2004 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Immerse yourself in "brooding atmosphere, Technicolor villains, and mile-a-second action" from Miami to the mountains of North Carolina in this standalone from the Shamus Award-winning creator of anti-hero Thorn. Hall also lives in southern Florida and North Carolina. Author tour planned. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.