Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Julia Keller is absolutely one of my favorite authors.  The Cold Way Home is the eighth book in the Bell Elkins series and, like the others, it doesn’t disappoint.

There is a lot of backstory in each of the Elkins’ books, but Ms. Keller does an excellent job of bringing the new reader up-to-date without boring those who have read previous novels.  The most important thing to learn is that Bell was formerly the district attorney in the small rural town of Acker’s Gap, West Virginia; a felony she committed as a child and was unaware of has recently come to light and caused her disbarrment, the loss of her position, and a prison term.

Trying to put all that behind her but still use her legal and detecting skills, she has opened INVESTIGATIONS, a three-person firm that includes Nick Fogelman, the former sheriff, Jake Oakes, the former deputy sheriff, and herself.  The skill level of each one is high but so are the burdens each carries.  For Bell, it’s knowing that her older sister had protected her from the knowledge of Bell’s crime at a great cost to herself.  For Nick, it’s the end of his forty-year marriage.  For Jake, it’s the reality that he will be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life due to a shooting in the line of duty.

In this book, the third in the series dealing with legal and illegal drugs in West Virginia, the opening scene is a particularly harrowing one.  The sheriff’s department and the EMTs are called to the Burger Boss where a young couple is in the throes of drug addiction.  The young man is passed out, his head on the booth’s table, but the young woman has barricaded herself in the bathroom.

When Deputy Sheriff Steve Brinksneader pushes into the bathroom, one of the emergency technicians has already administered Narcan to counteract the effects of the heroin the woman had taken.  As Steve pulls the woman off the toilet, he glances inside it and sees the tiny body of a baby.

At the same time, Bell and her partners in INVESTIGATIONS have been hired to find Dixie Sue Folson, a teenager missing from home for three days; Maggie Folson thinks her daughter may have been abducted by her lowlife boyfriend.  Bell’s hunt for the girl leads her to the long-deserted grounds of Wellwood, a psychiatric hospital that burned to the ground decades earlier.  And there she finds a body, but it’s not that of Dixie Sue.

Julia Keller’s last three mysteries have focused on the opioid crisis that is rampant in West Virginia, her home state.  In 2017, West Virginia had the highest percentage of deaths due to drugs in the United States; the state held that title in 2016 as well.  So when Bell tells district attorney Rhonda Lovejoy, “Fate doesn’t need to be tempted….Expect the worst and you’re never disappointed,” it’s all too true.

Starting from the beginning of this series would be ideal, but starting is the operative word.  Each book is well worth reading, and together they form a picture, although a sad one, of the hardscrabble life all too prevalent in rural America today.

You can read more about Julia Keller at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.