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iggy63 's review for:
The Long and Faraway Gone
by Lou Berney
From one of my favorite new writers, Long and Faraway Gone is a story about the power and persistence of memory. In Oklahoma City, 1986, Wyatt is 15 years old and the lone survivor of an armed robbery, left for dead among his co-workers at the mall movie theater. The same year, young Julianna goes to the carnival with her older sister Genevieve, and is abandoned when Genevieve goes off looking for trouble with a skeezy carny worker. Genevieve is never heard from again. For Wyatt, he starts a new life as detective in Vegas, and tries as hard as possible to forget his past. For Julianna, not a day goes by that she doesn’t relive her past, and solve the mystery of her missing sister.
When Wyatt returns to OKC to investigate a new and unrelated case, the past floods back into his life like a waterfall, and he begins to relive the events of 1986 and wonder what happened and why he survived. And when a prime suspect in Genevieve’s disappearance resurfaces, Julianna kicks her pursuit for answers into overdrive. The prose weaves past and present together constantly, which seems to have bothered some readers, but it worked for me. How often do our memories work their way into our everyday life? For characters with such traumatic pasts, you would expect the same.
Wyatt and Julianna interact in the story, but not as you might expect. This story is more about characters interacting with their past. And although the mysteries are solved to some extent, some stones are left unturned, and there are some unexpected twists along the way. This story is different from Berney’s crime fiction series starring Shake Bouchon. The Shake books have a comedic undertone reminiscent of Elmore Leonard or even the mayhem of Carl Hiassen. There is some humor here, but Long and Faraway Gone is a more serious work. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Now, Mr. Berney, what's the deal with the third Shake book? It's overdue, and I anxiously await it's release......
When Wyatt returns to OKC to investigate a new and unrelated case, the past floods back into his life like a waterfall, and he begins to relive the events of 1986 and wonder what happened and why he survived. And when a prime suspect in Genevieve’s disappearance resurfaces, Julianna kicks her pursuit for answers into overdrive. The prose weaves past and present together constantly, which seems to have bothered some readers, but it worked for me. How often do our memories work their way into our everyday life? For characters with such traumatic pasts, you would expect the same.
Wyatt and Julianna interact in the story, but not as you might expect. This story is more about characters interacting with their past. And although the mysteries are solved to some extent, some stones are left unturned, and there are some unexpected twists along the way. This story is different from Berney’s crime fiction series starring Shake Bouchon. The Shake books have a comedic undertone reminiscent of Elmore Leonard or even the mayhem of Carl Hiassen. There is some humor here, but Long and Faraway Gone is a more serious work. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Now, Mr. Berney, what's the deal with the third Shake book? It's overdue, and I anxiously await it's release......