Cripple Creek: A Novel (John Turner Series) - Hardcover

Sallis, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802733824 ISBN 13: 9780802733825

Publisher: Walker Books, 2006

Synopsis

A year or so has passed since the events of Cypress Grove. Ex-policeman, ex-con, former therapist Turner has become deputy sheriff in the small town within driving distance of Memphis, Tennessee, to which he had migrated in hopes of escaping his past and finding a measure of peace. His life is mending as he and Val Bjorn grow closer. And then a young man, arrested on a routine traffic stop with more than $200,000 in his trunk, is forcibly sprung from jail after Sheriff Don Lee is brutally assaulted. Throwing caution aside, Turner goes in pursuit to Memphis, unleashing ghosts he thought he had left behind, and endangering all that matters to him now.--From publisher description.Struggling to come to terms with his past, Turner, a burnt-out Memphis cop turned rural deputy sheriff, goes on the rampage when the local sheriff is seriously wounded during a jail break, following the perpetrators' trail back to Memphis, where he findshimself taking on the mob and confronting his own past.

About this title

About the Author

James Sallis is the author of more than two dozen volumes of fiction, poetry, translation, essays, and criticism, including the Lew Griffin cycle and Drive. His biography of the great crime writer Chester Himes is an acknowledged classic. Sallis lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife, Karyn, and an enormous white cat.

Reviews

Starred Review. In Sallis's beautifully written second book to feature Turner, an ex-cop and ex-con (after 2004's Cypress Grove), Turner is working as a deputy sheriff in Cripple Creek, Tenn., a small town where crime is minor and strictly local. Then, late one night, Sheriff Don Lee arrests drunk driver Judd Kurtz with $200,000 in a nylon gym bag hidden in the trunk of his car. Kurtz breaks out of the town jail, seriously wounding two officers in the process. Turner's investigation leads him to an organized crime connection in nearby Memphis that enmeshes him in a web of escalating violence. Sallis's working method is to simply let the cameras roll, depicting the lives of Turner, his banjo-picking girlfriend, his eccentric co-workers and Cripple Creek itself, as everyone goes about their business. Small moments are recorded as faithfully as large, and stories from earlier days mix with the ongoing crimes and misdemeanors of the present. A structural sleight of hand toward the end may at first confuse but is pretty amazing once the reader catches on. Author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* Sallis is really on a roll. Last October saw the arrival of his dynamite noir novella Drive, and now we have the superb second entry in his new Turner series. As this tale opens, Turner, ex-cop, ex-con, and ex-psychotherapist, remains on the lam in rural Cypress Grove, Tennessee, escaping the demons of past lives in Memphis, but he is starting to mend. There's a developing relationship with Val Bjorn, teacher and country musician; there's the appearance of his daughter from Seattle; and there's the fact that he has come out of hibernation to accept the job as deputy sheriff of Cypress Grove. Then his boss, the kindly sheriff, is assaulted by a gang of mobbed-up toughs in the act of breaking one of their own out of the small-town jail. Turner pursues the thugs to Memphis, confronting his past and giving vent to his suppressed blood lust. Every action prompts a reaction, however, and soon the thugs return to Cypress Grove looking for some blood of their own. Sallis tells the violent tale quietly, effectively using jump cuts, flashbacks, and flashforwards to generate both suspense and, simultaneously, a sense of inevitability. The stunning finale makes clear that Turner has a lot more healing to do. Sallis' Lew Griffin series remains a cult favorite among devoted hard-boiled fans, but don't be surprised if the Turner novels eventually claim pride of place in the author's oeuvre. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0802733824
• ISBN 13: 9780802733825
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272