Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich

Right after posting my review of Like Lions, I was rewarded when I found the county library had Bull Mountain on the shelves. So, I’m back in the mountains of North Georgia to get all the backstory details missed. A multigenerational yarn embodied in one word:

Family

It all began win Johnson Burroughs, the first of the clan to settle high up on Bull Mountain and gave birth an emerging criminal empire that began with making and selling moonshine. Son Thomas expanded into weed and was the benevolent overlord of the mountain. Sons Cooper and his half-brother Riley were less relatives and more Cain and Abel. 

But it was Cooper’s son Gareth who took things to a new level adding meth to their inventory. More efficient. Lots more money per unit of space. And he was good at it. His charisma drew more and more local men eager for the money and the respect of the locals. Half the state police in the area were in his pocket allowing him to run product with impunity. 

Had three kids. Buckley, Halford, and Clayton. The latter was eager to shed his family’s rep and ran for sheriff, mostly at the suggestion of girlfriend, and later wife, Kate. Off the mountain, most folks assumed Clayton was still in the business, now specializing in protection. Not a good assumption. Especially about a man trying like hell to stay out of a bottle that “smells like oak, vanilla, and bad decisions.”

Gareth died in a suspicious fire. Buck ended up with a couple hundred bullets in him.  Halford takes over. And Hal is nothing if not a psychopath. Those who wrong Hal end up dead and buried on a hillside littered with unmarked graves. “You can’t sneak up on the man who has spent is life in the woods sneaking up on things. They’ve tried it before. People died and nothing changed.”

Gareth was in need of guns to protect the mountain and settled into a deal with a Jacksonville biker gang that was profitable for both sides for upwards of 40 years. The gun deals caught the attention of the ATF. Special Agent Simon Holly temps Clayton with a deal that will save the family and their mountain . . . if Clayton can get Hal to rat out the bikers.

And now the plot really gets thick. In a story about family, I bet you can guess how that’ll turn out. Will there be blood? Count on it. Will it be whom you expect, and by whom you expect? Doubt it.

I’ve seen Panowich’s work called heartland noir, country noir, redneck noir, mountain noir. I wouldn’t know. Labels seem pretty meaningless to me. What I do know is that this. His debut novel is one terrific story. Shakespearean in scope, Puzo’ian in its familial loyalty across generations, Coben’esque in its penchant for twists. Twists that in hindsight, were there all the time for the reader clever enough to read the tea leaves. 

I’ve read a number of debut winners, but after much thought, I can’t recall a debut duo that pointed a Mossberg at my throat like Bull Mountain and Like Lions, daring me not to like climb aboard. Anyone who calls themselves fans of mystery/thrillers and haven’t read Panowich simply aren’t paying attention.

ECD

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