HARD CASH VALLEY
BY BRIAN PANOWICH
“I’m dreaming wide awake
Sleep walking, shake the dust out
Got to give this heart a break,
I can’t seem to slow the beats down
There ain’t no going home
Just a silence and a wave goodbye
I don’t really know about nothin’
Just know that I’m wasting time now”
lyrics by Jake Smith (The White Buffalo)
Hard Cash Valley is the third novel by Brian Panowich, and each book keeps getting better and better. Panowich knows how to take a character and a storyline and make them each hard as nails yet tender as a green leaf of spring.
With a slight nod to his previous books, Bull Mountain and Like Lions, the author creates a new character from the mountain, Dane Kirby, a former arson investigator and current agent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Dane has ghosts he lives with every day, and he isn’t thrilled when he’s called to help find a young boy with Asperger’s whose brother was brutally murdered. His relationships with his partner in the search and his other acquaintances, some old and some new, lead the reader up and down and all around, from Florida back to his Georgia mountain.
As with Panowich’s other novels, this one is filled with violence, blood and cruelty, which means it might not be for everyone. But it is also full of heartache, wistfulness and hope, so I suggest you give it a chance even if you don’t think it’s your style. Dane’s discussions with his wife are deeply personal and one of my favorite parts of the book, although the entire story is excellent.
I’ll keep eagerly looking for more from this author.
A big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
House of Black and Blue 