human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece

Book Review

 

Rating: **** 

 

Title: Down Don't Bother Me

 

Author: Jason Miller

 

Published: Harper, 2015; I listened to the unabridged audiobook (HarperAudio 2015, 7 hours, narrated by Johnny Heller - one of my favorites!)

 

Main idea:

    A hugely entertaining debut—the first novel in a wickedly funny gothic mystery series set in the withering landscape of the southern Illinois coal country known as “little Egypt”—that blends the wry humor of Kevin Wilson, the dark violence of Urban Waite, and the electric atmosphere of Greg Iles.

In the depths of the Knight Hawk, one of the last working collieries in downstate Illinois, the body of a reporter is found, his mini-recorder tied around his neck and a notepad stuffed in his mouth.

    The Knight Hawk’s owner, Matthew Luster, isn’t happy. He wants answers—and he doesn’t want the cops or any more press poking into his business. To protect himself and the operation, he turns to Slim, a mine employee with a reputation for “bloodhounding”—finding lost souls when the police can’t or won’t. Luster needs Slim to locate a missing photographer named Beckett, a close associate of the victim . . . who just happens to be his son-in-law.

    A hard-working single father barely making ends meet, Slim accepts the job—after Luster offers him a guaranteed pension and job security for life. But when you make a deal with the devil, you’re going to get burned . . . . and now Slim is all too close to the flames. Circumstances have lead him into the grimy underworld of Little Egypt, Illinois—a Babel’s Tower of rednecks, rubes, freaks, tweakers, gun nuts, and aging hippies-and it quickly becomes clear that he’s much more involved in the murder than an innocent man should be.

Down Don’t Bother Me marks the emergence of a wildly assured mystery novelist, and of a series set in the fresh and brutal landscape of southern Illinois.

What are the relationships like between characters?  Slim's relationships are complicated. He has a young daughter from a previous relationship, and a girlfriend at a different commitment stage from his own, and friends from work. He also has some former associates and a whole lot of apparent enemies.

 

Favorite part of the story: I can't point to just one thing, so I believe it was the 'mood' of the book that I enjoyed the most. It is a mystery, so there's tension, but there's also a sort of unsettled quality that pervades the book, and Slim himself. I can relate.

 

What do you think about the way it was written? This book is refreshingly straightforward and unassuming. Though I like an intricate mystery now and then, it is enjoyable to not get pulled into a bunch of blind alleys or slapped with red herrings. 

 

Was the book entertaining, educational, amusing...? Entertaining, for sure. Amusing at times. Clever, unassuming, and definitely redolent of the Flat.

 

If you recommend this book, to whom is it suited? I recommend this book to fans of modern mystery, who will not be frustrated by a very good first entry to a series that (apparently) will remain unfinished. 

 

[review template adapted from here; the title quotation is by Vladimir Nabokov, from Lolita]