Chris Offutt returns with his fourth Mick Hardin novel, and once again the unwilling investigator is working the author’s beloved eastern Kentucky hills. In Code of the Hills, last year, the way was cleared for him to lead Eldridge County law enforcement. Mick’s sister, the county sheriff, was shot and the deputy, Johnny Boy Toliver had to be spirited out of the county after killing a man.
But Mick is reluctant to take on the job for aa variety of reasons. He’s a natural loner, something which contributed to his recent divorce, He had an ill-advised one-night stand with the department’s radio dispatcher, which makes things awkward. And having left the army after 20 years of service, he feels rootless and out of place in the close-knit hill community he is supposed to police.
At least Mick is able to make Raymond ‘Ray-Ray’ Kissick his deputy. He can turn to the former marine and black sheep of the Kissick crime family (see Shifty’s Boys) for support.
Mick’s reluctance steps up a level after a visit from his ex-wife, Peggy. Skeeter Martin, owner of the Ajax Bar & Grill, has been found shot dead in the car park outside the bar. For arcane liquor licensing reasons, the bar sits right on the boundary of Rocksalt City and Eldridge County. The car park is city jurisdiction and the police are investigating. If Skeeter had been shot inside, however, it would be a county case, and therefore Mick’s responsibility.
Rocksalt Police have arrested Zack Jones, Peggy’s new husband, and the man who got her pregnant while Mick was overseas with the army. Peggy is convinced Zack is innocent and wants Mick to perform his own investigation. Despite his misgivings, Mick can’t say ‘no’ to Peggy, and goes to discuss the case with the Rocksalt cops.
Picking up the latest Mick Hardin novel is like catching up with an old friend. Very quickly you fall back in to the rhythms of hill country, the cadence of the speech, the code that the people live by. Sharing Mick’s almost philosophical, anxious thoughts about where he belongs in life, his regrets, his simple ambitions, is an intimate reading experience.
Linda, recuperating at Shifty’s place, necessarily takes a back seat. Perhaps more than any other in the series, this is Mick’s book. We see his other side, honed in the army as a special forces soldier and investigator, decisive and confident, able to swiftly formulate a plan and instigate it. It is testament to Offutt’s considerable skill that these two sides, the contemplative and the resolute, never jar or strain the reader’s belief.
Occasionally, Offutt breaks from the main story to explore Johnny Boy Tolliver’s life as an exile in Corsica. His fish-out-of-water story is both gently touching and funny. As it is for Mick, so it is for Tolliver. A major theme of The Reluctant Sheriff, one which actually runs throughout this remarkable series, is of the need to be at peace with yourself and with the world. Just one of the ways the series stands out from the pack.
Grove Atlantic
Print/Kindle/iBook
£9.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
