An easy read, recommended to by Dick Redington, a retired VP at Chautauqua Institution, a member of the Thursday breakfast club. It's a typical murder/mystery though the setting is quite different, a small town in rural Mississippi in the early 2000's. The two protagonists are Silas Jones, "32", a former high school baseball star, now the black constable for Chabot, MS, a town of 500 or so people, and Larry Ott, a recluse, 'Scary Larry,' as the locals call him because 30 years ago, his date disappeared after he dropped her off on the road to her house. No one could prove that Larry killed her, but everyone believed he did. He was ostracized by his peers, quit school, and his parents suffered this status as well. Thirty years later, Larry is shot by a man wearing a Halloween mask, and the story begins, as "32" looks for the shooter but uncovers much more. The typical rednecks people the text though most appear much more tolerate of blacks then they might have been 30 years ago. The novel switches back and forth between Larry, his thoughts and isolation, his past and what leads up to his being shot, and Silas or "32", his path towards discovery of both the shooter, his past, and his relationship with Larry. Readable and well written, I would give it four stars out of five.
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