REVIEWED BY BARRY GARDNER:

   

JAMESON COLE – A Killing in Quail County. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1996. Worldwide Library, paperback, 1997.

   Cole lives in Colorado, and this is his first novel.

   It’s the Summer of 1957 in Bob White, Oklahoma, and Mark Stoddard is 15. He’s been living with his Deputy Sheriff brother since their parents were killed in an accident a year ago, and not having an easy time of it.

   This summer an old man who hates his brother will be released from prison, return to Bob White and set up a bootlegger’s still, and begin to haunt Mark’s life. This summer his best friend’s cousin, a young girl, will come to spend the summer with them, and Mark will find that girls can be more, much more, than just pests. This summer human beings will die by violence in Bob White, and Mark’s childhood will end forever.

   This is a coming-of-age novel, a story of the rites of passage from one view of the world to another, and a damned good one. I hate to see it published as a genre novel by a house that won’t promote it, because it deserves better.

   Cole does as good a job of showing small town rural life in the 50s as you’re likely to find, and you can trust me on this; I was there, a hundred or so miles south and a couple of years earlier. He tells his story in straightforward first-person prose, and creates characters you can believe in. It may not work for everybody, but it sure did for me.

— Reprinted from Ah Sweet Mysteries #25, May 1996.