The Freshour Cylinders
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- 2,99 €
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- 2,99 €
Publisher Description
(Winner of a 1999 American Book Award and 1999 Oklahoma Book Award finalist.)
Tom Freshour needs a vacation. It’s the dusty, hot summer of 1934, and he’d like to escape both the heat in western Arkansas and his cases at the county prosecutor’s office for the calm and solitude of a fishing trip. But his old Ford won’t start, and while it’s being repaired, an eccentric and enigmatic collector of Indian artifacts is brutally murdered.
It doesn’t help matters that the executor of the collector’s estate is Rainy Davis, a beautiful, intelligent young archaeologist who’s uncertain why she was appointed to oversee the estate of a man whom she’d met only once.
Nor does it help that the most formidable county judge has asked personally that Freshour take the case. But Freshour agrees, drawing himself into a tense and violent investigation of murder, political scandal, and some very private affairs.
In this suspenseful literary mystery, Speer Morgan takes us back to the events surrounding the discovery and destruction of the Spiro Mound, the most significant pre-Columbian temple mound ever found in North America. Weaving history with the compelling story murder, broken hearts, and greed, Morgan gives us one of the most engrossing, sexy, and suspenseful reads of the year.
“…[a] memorable, riveting read.”
— Wally Lamb
“Morgan’s narrative has a taste of hard-boiled detective flavor and is enlivened with chase scenes and revenge, secret passages and steamy romance. Its campy setting is richly portrayed and its sleazy politics are sadly familiar…. Both ambitious and canny, Morgan’s book is also good old-fashioned fun.”
— Irene Wanner, The Seattle Times
“Morgan is a good writer, a seasoned writer, and this is a novel with a nice combination of suspense, history, intelligence — and even a little social commentary about American Indians. It deserved attention — maybe yours.”
— G. William Gray, The Tampa Tribune
“…unlike a simple whodunit, the mysteries at the heart of Morgan’s story run far deeper. They’ll leave you pondering this taut, haunting, unique novel long after the last page is turned.”
— Steven Hill
“The sense of place envelops and immerses the reader, creating a verisimilitude that is honest, appealing and original. Morgan also peoples this intense landscape with some of the most well defined, realistic and memorable characters that I have come across in recent years.”
— James Filkins, ForeWord
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Native American assistant prosecutor Tom Freshour (last seen in The Whipping Boy, 1994) investigates a murder in Depression-era Fort Smith, Ark., on the Oklahoma border, in Morgan's Chandler-indebted fourth. The dead man, local eccentric Lee Guessner, trafficked artifacts from the famous Spiro Mound nearby, but was also involved in one of the elaborate real estate frauds that flourished at the time on former Native American lands. When lovely, smart-cookie Rainy Davis shows up as the unlikely inheritor (Lee had met her on a South American dig), she sparks Tom's love as he remembers wooing her mother. Along with trusty old court bailiff Hank, they sift through the local landscape and Native American heritage to exact justice, not only for murder, but also for crimes against Native American land, spirit and history. Years later, Tom tells the story into cylinders on an old Dictaphone machine and these are discovered later still, providing a neat framing device (and the story's title). Tom's tone shifts back and forth from sensitive outsider to marauding vigilante, but traditional characters like Tom's clueless wealthy boss, the dirty local sheriff and the judge with a secret make this a satisfying (if sometimes slow-moving) thriller with the added enjoyment of authentic depictions of Native American culture and history. FYI: Morgan is the editor of the Missouri Review.
