My home-grown measure of a good crime novel is the number of people I'd like to give a copy to. On that scale, alas, OZARK DOGS by Eli Cranor scored really low.
And it's not because of the violence. Anyone reading dark stuff, "noir," knows how to handle that. Plus I really appreciated Cranor's earlier crime novel, Don't Know Tough.
Partly it's because nothing turns out right for anyone in this Southern thriller with a missing teen and her secretive granddaughter.
But the bigger part is because it paints a compelling image of "country folk" as violent, menacing, and ready to hold deadly grudges across generations (the pre-publication publicity even mentioned Hatfield–McCoy blood feud). Cranor is such a convincing writer that readers run a risk of thinking this Southern Gothic shows the real world.
Sure, you can put menace and despair into fiction, and maybe some readers won't take it personally. But give me a choice and I'll take the way Randall Silvis handles the theme instead, where courage and loyalty have as much of a presence as the junkyard dogs and the weapons.
Get a copy if you want to go really, really bleak. Just don't blame me if you drop into a week of depression or waste the grocery money on chocolate, to recover.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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