The Reluctant Sheriff
A Mick Hardin Novel
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- USD 9.99
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- USD 9.99
Descripción editorial
Master storyteller Chris Offutt’s acclaimed crime series has been praised by Ian Rankin as “righteous Kentucky noir with top notes of Daniel Woodrell and S. A. Cosby,” and in this breakneck new novel, sheriff Mick Hardin navigates the treacherous terrain of a town’s festering secrets and the violent forces who want to keep them hidden
Lauded as a “masterclass in the craft of crime fiction” (CrimeReads), Chris Offutt’s beloved and critically acclaimed Mick Hardin series is an atmospheric, tightly crafted testament to Southern noir. The Reluctant Sheriff is a dark, bracing return to the hills of eastern Kentucky where secrets roil beneath the surface, and nothing and no one stays in the past for long.
Mick Hardin never wanted to be sheriff. An ex-Army CID officer, he’s supposed to be retired—or he was until his sister, Linda, was shot in the line of duty, requiring him to step in as interim sheriff while she recovered. Now he’s stuck in Rocksalt, the place he was most hoping to escape.
Back in uniform, Mick is chafing at the sudden dissolution of his retirement plans, wearied by the petty squabbles of Rocksalt’s townsfolk. It’s all business as usual, until the murder of a local bar owner draws an unlikely suspect who threatens to fan the flames of Mick’s past. When two more bodies turn up, seemingly unconnected to the first, Mick is forced to reckon with the mysterious circumstances of a case not so open-and-shut as everyone believes. Meanwhile, Linda is slowly healing when a familiar business tycoon with a vested interest in her returning as sheriff makes it difficult for her to remain on the sidelines.
Unflinching and devilishly compulsive, The Reluctant Sheriff is an explosive thriller confirming Chris Offutt as a Southern writer of muscular prose and unrivaled talent.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Offutt melds sharp prose and satisfying grit in his fourth thriller featuring former Army investigator Mick Hardin (after Code of the Hills). Hardin came out of retirement to serve as the sheriff of Eldridge County, Ky., after his sister, Linda, was injured in the line of duty. Recently, the situation has left him feeling that "his life had reached its nadir at age forty—a job he didn't want, a car he didn't own, living in his dead mother's house, divorced, adrift, and befuddled." His position grows more uncomfortable when bar owner Skeeter Martin is fatally shot, and Zack Jones, the new husband of Hardin's ex-wife, Peggy, is charged with the crime. Peggy insists that Jones is innocent and beseeches Hardin to exonerate him, but Hardin isn't completely convinced by her pleas. When two more seemingly unrelated murders rock Eldridge County, however, the sheriff starts to suspect that Peggy might be right. Offutt's sentences are a cut above standard-issue crime fiction ("Only nature itself was consistent—relentless, beautiful, benevolent, and cruel," Hardin muses), and he continues to add layers to this series' rich rural setting without skimping on pace or plot. The result is an exemplary Southern noir.
