Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
Sarah Jane Pullman is a good cop, something that is as much of a surprise to her, as it is to anyone else. Named as the de-facto Sheriff of a town where the one-horse is (if not dead), then deeply sick. Her first case is finding her missing predecessor. She embarks on a search that will uncover the darker parts of the journey that brought her recognition.
This is a remarkable book, as brilliant as it is concise and considered. James Sallis packs into less than two hundred pages a character study of lives played out on the Badlands (at the back of beyond), to rival many pretenders to the title of the so-called ‘great American novel’.
The setting is stark, the America behind the neon and the conspicuous consumption; where just getting to the end of the day, counts as a victory achieved against overwhelming odds.
In Sarah Jane Pullman he has created a protagonist born into bad luck and for whom, things have gotten worse. Her resilience and resourcefulness is illustrated in the way she copes with life, even when lemons are lobbed at her like curve balls.
There is a redemption of sorts in an outstanding novel.
James Sallis writing is torn between the noir of Jim Thompson, and small-town Americana of John Steinbeck. He should be on the reading list of anyone who enjoys difficult stories, told well.
