WHERE THE HURT IS

WHERE THE HURT IS

BY CHRIS KELSEY

“There’s an Elvis movie on the marquee sign,
We’ve all seen at least three times
Everybody’s broke, Bobby’s got a buck
Put a dollar’s worth of gas in his pickup truck
We’re going’ ninety miles an hour down a dead end road
What’s the hurry, son, where you gonna go?
We’re gonna howl at the moon, shoot out the light
It’s a small town Saturday night
It’s a small town Saturday night“
– Small Town Saturday Night – lyrics by Hank Devito / Patrick Alger

The 1960’s in fictional Burr, Oklahoma: small-town boredom and small-town minds, nowhere to go and nothing to do, rednecks and racism, and lots of alcohol. And the murdered body of a young black girl found tossed near the train tracks.

Police Chief Emmett Hardy, one of a handful of liberals in a town no bigger than a handful itself, is determined to find the killer. While others would have just shrugged off the murder of a “colored” girl, he can’t do that. Ill-equipped to do much more than write speeding tickets in his tiny burg, Emmett sets out to investigate and bring to justice the murderer.

Narrated by the folksy police chief, the story is a true-to-life depiction of small town life in mid-sixties Oklahoma. Threaded through with both humor and pathos, this engrossing tale highlights the racists and church-goers that make up this community (often one and the same in this town) and where their loyalties lie.

A thoroughly enjoyable read that I couldn’t put down.

Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for a copy of this book, and a huge apology for the delay in reviewing this wonderful book.

4 stars