A Killing in the Hills
by Julia Keller
Hardcover: 371 pages
ISBN: 9781250003485
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Date: 2012
Starred review – Publisher’s Weekly
Starred review – Booklist
Starred review – Library Journal
Starred review – Kirkus
SYNOPSIS:
Prosecuting attorney Bell Elkins and her estranged teenage daughter, Carla, try to protect their town and each other in the aftermath of a shocking triple murder committed by an unknown shooter whose identity is gradually realized by Carla. In this novel a mother and a daughter try to do right by a town and each other before it is too late. What is happening in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas of the country just like Acker’s Gap? Or were Dean Streeter, Shorty McClurg, and Lee Rader targeted somehow? One of the witnesses to the brutal incident was Carla Elkins, teenaged daughter of Bell Elkins, the prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, West Virginia. Carla was shocked and horrified by what she saw, but after a few days, she begins to recover enough to believe that she might be uniquely placed to help her mother do her job. After all, what better way to repair their fragile, damaged relationship? But could Carla also end up doing more harm than good, in fact, putting her own life in danger?
SUBJECTS:
Mothers and daughters, Murder, Violence, Emotional trauma, Lawyers, Witnesses
REVIEWS:
“Outstanding. . .Keller does a superb job showing both the natural beauty of Appalachia and the hopeless anger of the people trapped there in poverty. . .Unforgettable.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review, Pick of the Week)
“A page-turner with substance and depth, this is as suspenseful and entertaining as it is accomplished.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“A fictional debut for a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, born and raised in West Virginia, whose love for the state, filled with natural beauty and deep poverty, pervades a mystery that has plenty of twists and turns and a shocking conclusion.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“A Killing in the Hills superbly evokes the hard times and wooded beauty of a poverty-stricken county in West Virginia. . .A finely written and engrossing debut.” —Houston Chronicle
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