After a four year absence, Sheila Simonson returns to the Columbia River Gorge area for her latest Latouche County mystery, Call Down the Hawk. It’s a reflective story, told from multiple viewpoints, about the tragic deaths of two domineering men who happened to be neighbors.
Jane August was visiting her father, Frank August, and his fifth wife when the news came about the financial collapse of the bank he had turned over to his son, Gus. And, soon after, Frank disappears. Was he escaping the notoriety? Running away from his wife? Or was it something worse? Over on the Hough (pronounced Hawk) farm, someone may have seen something.
Bill Hough committed suicide, leaving a cowed wife, an estranged son, Russell, who hadn’t been home since he left at eighteen, and a daughter, Judith, who was a military hero, but suffers from PTSD. The night Frank August disappeared, Judith may have seen something as she patrolled the farm. But, she tried to kill herself that night, saved only by Russell. She’s in a coma, unaware that she may have witnessed a murder because Frank August’s body is uncovered by a bulldozer on the Hough farm.
Yes, Call Down the Hawk is the story of a murder investigation, led by Undersheriff Rob Neill. But, even more, it’s the story of two adult children, Russell Hough and Jane August, trying to pick up the pieces of shattered lives that were broken by their fathers. Jane escaped most of her father’s turmoil, until she learns the terms of the will.
Thoughtful. Reflective. Call Down the Hawk is a leisurely paced story, seen through multiple eyes. But, Jane August, the artist, is the one who sees the land and the people with an artist’s perspective. And, Frank August and Bill Hough left destruction in their wake, brutalizing the people they left behind.
Sheila Simonson’s website is http://sheila.simonson.googlepages.com
Call Down the Hawk by Sheila Simonson. Perseverance Press. 2017. ISBN 9781564745972 (paperback), 248p.
*****
FTC Full Disclosure – I received the book to review for a journal.
