Mick Hardin is not in a good place. He is back in rural Kentucky, the place he spent so much time getting out of. He's living with his sister, the local sheriff, while he recuperates a leg he injured in Iraq when an IED exploded. He returned to find divorce papers from the wife he left behind and who has already moved on, living with the man whose baby she just had. Mick is bored and taking too many painkillers when he gets the news.
Mick is about out of painkillers when he hears that the local drug dealer, a guy he grew up with, has been shot and killed, his body right over the county line so not a case for his sister's office. In fact, it seems that no police are that concerned as they don't regard the death of a drug dealer as a major disaster and don't seem to be doing much to solve the case. Mick is summoned by Shifty, the man's mother. She asks Mick to look into the death since the police are writing it off. Hesitant but bored, Mick says he'll look into it and see if there is anything to be done.
Before he can do much, the first man's brother is shot and killed right in the middle of town. Now it is his sister's case, and much worse, Shifty has lost two sons in a week. Shifty is the epitome of a hill woman, as quick to pull a gun as to cook up a mess of greens. But Mick feels for her and is now determined to find out who is causing this grief and unrest in his home town. He starts to investigate in real aided by Shifty's last remaining son, a Marine who lives in California but is home for the funeral. Can the two find out what is going on?
Chris Offutt is a product of Kentucky. He is known as a novelist and screenwriter, having worked on the television shows True Blood and Weeds. This novel is the second in the Mick Hardin series, of which there are four so far. I could relate to the rural Kentucky setting as my father came from a small Kentucky town and we would go and visit the relatives, some of which refused to observe Daylight Savings Time or still had an outhouse. But they were good decent folks as the ones in this book are. Mick is a reluctant hero but uses his Army training to set things right when he feels they need to be addressed. I listened to this book but the narrator didn't use the Kentucky twang I'm used to hearing there. This book is recommended for mystery readers.