I thought Laura McHugh’s The Wolf Wants In was a dark, grim book. Chris Harding Thornton’s debut, Pickard County Atlas, has that beat. The story, set in north-central Nebraska, has a foreboding atmosphere, and one of the most disturbing endings I’ve read in a book. However, fans of rural noir might want to pick it up.
Deputy Harley Jensen knows every tract of land and house on his nightly patrols in Pickard County. He only varies his routine if he stops by the house where his mother killed herself with a shotgun. Or, if one of the dilapidated houses in the county catches fire, he goes to the scene.
Jensen suspects Paul Reddick. The Reddicks haven’t been right since Dell, Jr. was killed eighteen years earlier. The boy was seven, and his body was never found. Dell, Sr. finally put a stone on an empty plot in the cemetery. Mrs. Reddick has been a ghost in the community, rumored to be crazy. Paul has been in trouble or an instigator, and Harley blames every little incident on him. His brother, Rick, is married to a woman he loves, Pam, and has a three-year-old daughter, Anna.
But, Pam Reddick is miserable, and she just wants out – out of the shabby trailer they live in, out of her marriage, out of her responsibilities as a mother. And, she’s ready to bolt until her own mother tells her she’s stuck for the next fifteen years, that Anna didn’t ask for life. She’s Pam’s responsibility until she turns eighteen. This only makes Pam more desperate to run from all the Reddicks.
Deputy Harley Jensen and the Reddicks are on a collision course. With strange thefts and house fires in the county, and a sheriff’s department that’s short-handed, Jensen is on patrol more than usual. The final confrontation is unforgettable, and just as grim as the rest of the story.
At times, rural noir, a grim story set in America’s Heartland, might be just what you’re looking for. Check out Pickard County Atlas.
Chris Harding Thornton’s website is chrishardingthornton.com
Pickard County Atlas by Chris Harding Thornton. MCD, 2021. ISBN 9780374231255 (hardcover), 288p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I received a .PDF to review for a journal.
I recently won this in a goodreads drawing, but it hasn’t arrived yet.
If it’s coming by USPS, Glen, I hope it arrives before Thornton’s second book is released.
Just checked and Dallas is getting five copies so I slapped a hold on one and am first on the board here.
It’s good. Grim and gritty, but very good, Kevin.
I don’t know if I like rural noir because I am always too reluctant to try it. If you think the ending is disturbing, it is probably not for me. I can handle some violence and grit, in some situations, but not now.
Excellent book, Tracy, but I don’t blame you. Just a depressing book. Excellent, but depressing.