Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Larry Ott is the type of guy you would not want to take the time to learn. Referred to by the locals as "Scary Larry" Ott lives alone in the middle of nowhere, off the beaten path in rural Mississippi farmhouse. Son of the late engineer, he runs the only auto shop in the small town of Chabot, although rarely is the local visitors. His social Bane stems in part from a missing person case in the late seventies, which was never resolved, Larry was last seen with a young girl and is widely assumed that he was responsible for her death. Issues are further complicated by thirty-odd years later, when another girl goes missing in the present. Accusations fly fast and this time it was Larry, whose life is at stake.

Meanwhile, Silas Jones, Constable of Chabot, one of the loner himself, although he frequents a local bar and has a taste for loose women. The black man, he went to school with Silas (who is white) shortly after Chabot integration in the mid seventies. Since high school, Silas moved away from Chabot, and after college and a brief restriction in the army, decided to return home to deal with the police. Having made friends with Larry for a short period in high school, and because we do not know, force has become confused with the possibility of contacting Larry him upon his return. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter Tom Franklin (author of Hell on the back) is intricately woven novel, slow-building page-turner with jolts of suspense and electrifying twists at the end of each chapter that make it difficult to set the book aside. Taking its name we are told, from Rome to the South, children learn how to help them decipher how to spell Mississippi, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter captures the subtleties of life in a small town in a beautiful place to dialogue and real interaction between the southern people.

Take for example the exchange between the Force and his mistress Angie, over the possibility of crime:

"Let the child. Tell me more."
"I need yall to run outside when you get a minute. Little dirt road at Chabot, from camping Cemetery Road".
"I know where he is staying. How come?"
"Only when one minute. See if it looks clean. It is not far from where yall at now."

He also praised for the characterization of-all, including minor characters are given enough detail and assigned its own idiosyncrasies that can give life. There are French, Silas 'superior, former game warden and Vietnam vet who has a penchant for tacky T-shirts, shrimp po' boys, and Coca-Cola. We meet Mrs. Voncille, city clerk, a woman know that tense, because it requires only one seat in her joint office near a window, just because there is no longer hates when someone leaves the toilet seat up, and was divorced a few times. Even Silas has its quirks, the nickname "32" because of his baseball number in high school.

If you are looking for storytelling at its best then look no further, you find it. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is all that diamond in the ruff that comes along once in a while, to satisfy readers' desire for mystery and adventure.