New Book: Dry Bones in the Valley

With just a few weeks left before law school classes start again, I hope your summer writing and research projects are well underway, giving you time to relax a bit with a good beach read.  I’ve got one to recommend, too.  It’s Dry Bones in the Valley by Tom Bouman. 

The mystery is set in northeastern Pennsylvania, where old time music haunts the air, mixing with the off and on whine of modern day fracking.  One of my favorite authors is Tana French, whose Dublin-based “police procedural mysteries” are an excuse for deep exploration of the human condition. Tom’s debut novel is in that tradition, even bringing to bear an Irish spirit or two. I like it best when I can see, hear and “feel” the settings in a novel, as in this passage, where bone-tired Henry Farrell struggles to find balance while carrying out his official duties as the rural township’s investigator:

I knew I wouldn’t sleep and likely shouldn’t with my head the way it was.  Went back inside, got out my fiddle, and rosined the bow….

 

I needed something I could rip into. “Bonaparte’s Retreat” found me. . . . By the time I got to the modified part B Copland had made so famous, I had to stop and breathe.  I thought of George Ellis.  Got a piece of paper and curled it into a funnel, poured the rest of my whiskey back into the bottle, and went to bed, but never to sleep.

 

It’s not hard to get up if you never go down.  Dawn brought a hint that the weather might get clearer.  With enough pain pills, my head would too.  The eastern sky was bright as a wild rose as I walked stiff-backed from my woodpile with an armload for the stove.  The snow had melted, and my boots left prints on a field that, newly bared, crackled underfoot and shimmered silver; it was a beauty that would not last another ten minutes, so I dropped the firewood and stood and watched the night’s frost dissolve into morning mist.  Somewhere in the tree line, a bluebird burbled a tune, but I couldn’t pick him out.  It was the first songbird I’d heard that spring….

Strong writing, yes? But, how does this particular book relate to the Elder Law Prof Blog?  Well, as you may have come to expect from me by now, one reason is a central character in the mystery, ol’ Aub, may — or may not — be too old to remember the truths of what happened.

Another reason is the author is a current Penn State Dickinson law student, and his new book has already earned a 2015 Edgar Award for best first novel and a 2015 Los Angeles Times Book Award for best mystery/thriller. 

Congratulations, Tom!