Black Hammock

December 7, 2015
As Wiley explains in an author's note to his unconventional second Daniel Turner noir (after 2014's Blue Avenue), the Florida homicide detective always plays a supporting character, "the common element in others' lives and deaths, getting caught in the spirals of crime that he investigates." This time, the main players are Daniel's sister, Lillian, an English teacher, and her husband, Johnny Bellefleur, a skiptracer permanently scarred by his memories of his time dealing with dead bodies as an Army corpsman. Lillian takes a special interest in one of her students, 19-year-old Sheneel Greene, and is devastated when the young woman's partially decomposed body is found near a clay pit. Sheneel, who had a history of suicide attempts, is believed to have taken her own life. Johnny finds proof of foul play when he comes across Sheneel's arm, cleanly severed from the rest of her body. Wiley tosses several surprises in along the way to the tense conclusion. The book's strength lies in its insights into the well-developed characters, enhanced by alternating first-person narratives. Agent: Philip Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency.

June 1, 2016

Det. Daniel Turner investigates an unsolved 18-year-old homicide in this third outing (after Second Skin). Oren Jakobsen was eight when his father was killed and he was left for dead. Now, Oren has returned to Florida for revenge against his mother. This atmospheric Southern gothic uncovers unpleasant secrets for all involved.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2016
Poor Daniel Turner. He is the nominal hero of Wiley's gritty noir series set in and around Jacksonville, Florida, but he doesn't get a whole lot of screen time. Here the Jacksonville homicide detective's main job is to help set the premise: haunted by an unsolved disappearance years ago, he returns to the scene after hearing about a disturbance in the area. The focus then turns to the bad guys and the morbid, even slightly fantastical, revenge drama they are intent on playing out. Oren is a man out to destroy the man who murdered his father and married his mother. Yes, it's Hamlet in the country, but Oren is no prince. He leads a small squad of wannabe killers on a road trip from Georgia to Oren's family home, Black Hammock Island, in northern Florida. Once there, they encircle the house and begin a siege of torture and torment that evokes Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. The horrific action sometimes strains credibility, but no one will stop reading, so hypnotic is Wiley's writing. Perhaps the point here is the corrosiveness of revengeor the ability of a fine writer to make so outlandish a narrative so powerful.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)