The Long and Faraway Gone

Starred review from February 9, 2015
Edgar Awardâfinalist Berney (Whiplash River) will raise a lump in the throats of many of his readers with this sorrowful account of two people's efforts to come to terms with devastating trauma. In 1986, Wyatt Rivers worked at an Oklahoma City movie theater that was hit by gun-wielding robbers who massacred the staff, but, for some reason, let Wyatt live. A month later, 12-year-old Julianna Rosales attended the Oklahoma State Fair, where her older sister, Genevieve, walked off into the night, never to return. In 2012, those tragedies still preoccupy Wyatt and Julianna. Wyatt, now a PI, gets a case that takes him back to Oklahoma City, where he can't help reliving the night of the massacre. Meanwhile, Julianna, now a nurse, is obsessed with pursuing any possible lead to her sister's fate, and gets new hope of a breakthrough when someone posts online an image from the last evening she saw Genevieve. The leads' struggles are portrayed with painful complexity, and Berney, fittingly, avoids easy answers. Agent: Richard Parks, Richard Parks Agency.

Lou Berney's story of two Oklahomans haunted by crimes from decades earlier is alluring and exquisitely written. Brian Hutchinson astutely delivers the chapters narrated by Wyatt Rivers, a P.I. who is reluctantly returning to Oklahoma. Hutchinson's range paints an auditory rainbow with the diversity of Berney's characters. From the spitfire bar owner to the eccentric musician, he teases out the rich nuances, then allows them to blend seamlessly back into the story. Amy McFadden's portrayal of Julianna, whose sister vanished from the state fair many years ago, hits on her internal struggles beautifully; however, her depiction of Julianna's foe, Crowley, is unconvincing. It lacks the grit and hardness of his hard-knocks life. While there are certainly areas for improvement in this production, it's definitely worth the listen. J.F. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine