A book with a title like that's got promise, right?
The further south one goes in West Virginia, the poorer and less coal one finds. In fact, McCray county is so poor, the neighboring Jasper county is having to annex its neighbor. The Sheriff, Mary Beth (Thompson) Cain is an oddity is a state full of oddities. A female Sheriff in a patriarchal state known for being intolerant of anything not white and male. She’s known her chief deputy, Izzy (all five foot nothing of him) since high school. Mary Beth got her job when her husband, the ‘real’ sheriff was gunned down.
She’s far from some damsel in the wrong job. She has a take-no-prisoners reputation for putting down most any lawbreaker, successfully driving the meth cookers out of the county. She must be related to Raylan Givens (Justified).
Her biggest problems are closer to home. Her brother Sawyer Thompson is pure redneck mountain trash. Has a radio talk show/podcast that he does from the Old Wingo Mine property where he shouts racist hate and revolution to an ever-growing group of followers who call him the Moonshine Messiah. A real piece of work.
For the most part, Sawyer is just an annoyance to Mary Beth. The real thorn in her backside is her very own mother. The matriarch of most all the criminal goings on in the county. Rumor has it that 200 votes for Mary Beth’s run for sheriff came from local cemeteries courtesy of Mamie Thompson. That’s gotten the state attorney general sniffing around with an indictment of Mary Beth just waiting to be served.
The death of a local football legend has the townships on edge. Then the McCray County Courthouse is blown up complete with some deaths and a bunch of injuries. That brings the FBI to town all set to drag Sawyer and his followers to jail, if they surrender, or start filling body bags with the drooling press comparing the Old Wingo Mine to Waco. And everybody is looking to Mary Beth to intervene with Sawyer and bring the standoff to a peaceful end.
Peaceful end? Yeah, right. This is Jasper County, WV.
Patriot Central. The arsenal they are sitting on own rivals what the feds have
brought. They have the high ground and know the territory.The first exchange of gunfire favors the locals, not the feds.
Now while the standoff continues, the real issue is why the hell started all this and who has the most to gain?
Regular readers of the blog should know that perhaps my favorite corner of the mystery genre is loosely termed redneck noir, country noir, swamp noir, and maybe a half dozen other labels. Some of the noteworthy practitioners reviewed on this blog include JD Rhoades, Brian Panowich, SA Cosby, Joe R. Lansdale, Chris Offutt, among others. The Moonshine Messiah is Johnson’s first novel and it packs a wallop. One of two more like this will get Johnson’s name added to that list.
Consider this an indie book. Published by Shotgun Honey Books (huh, what?), that has quite the list of authors in its stables including Dana King, Chris Offutt, and Erik Pruitt (all reviewed here on MRB). Judging by the author photos on the website, I’m betting a company-wide party would be a hoot. Lots of full beards, hats, piercings, and shit-eating grins.
ECD
wonderful review, thanks
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