Debris

November 15, 2015
Smoothly connected by uncompromising settings and Hardcastle's authentic, plainspoken country-noir voice, the 11 stories collected here will appeal to fans of gritty, back-country crime fiction, even those who typically shun short stories. In Old Man Marchuk, a young cop's determined, principled pursuit of unpopular justice puts his family in danger. Hardcastle explores justice from the lawbreaker's perspective in Bandits, a haunting tale of a family of liquor thieves bound by fierce loyalty. Debris is the story of an elderly woman's startlingly matter-of-fact hunting of a serial killer hiding from police in the woods behind her house. The author leaves no hardscrabble stone unturned; poverty, mental illness, retribution, serial murder, suicide, and addiction are all examined through a lens of pragmatism, determination, and hope that fends off bleakness. This collection has its own strong voice but shares notes with Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone (2006), Gillian Flynn's Dark Places (2009), Lori Roy's Let Me Die in His Footsteps (2015), and Christian Kiefer's The Animals (2015).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)