Editors Note: This is the first half of a doubleshot review. On Wednesday we'll have another review of the same book from ?wazithinkin.
Genre: Historical/Adventure
Description:
This is a story about how the Ku Klux Klan
operated in Florida in the nineteen fifties, leavened with a sprinkling of southern
conjure magic. Turns out the KKK aren’t very bright and it is easier to confuse
them than you might think, or might be deemed wise, considering they like
setting fire to things and are usually heavily armed. So, a silent approach
might work best: a bow and arrows?
Author:
Malcolm R Campbell is an author who has lived
in the Florida panhandle (where this novel is set) and is old enough to
remember the final days of the KKK. His anger about that organisation continues
to burn, and this is an angry book. Coincidentally, it has been released when
we must, once again, reiterate that Black Lives Matter and that racism is a
foul thing which must be resisted wherever it is encountered.
Appraisal:
I enjoyed this book a lot. It’s set in Torreya, a fictional
town in the Florida panhandle, in the mid nineteen fifties. Domination by the
KKK ran deep at that time in those southern places. All the same, although it
put their lives in danger, there were those who resisted.
Campbell’s cast of characters include people
the reader has met before in the first three books of his Florida Magic series.
Favourites Eulalie, Willy Tate and the mind-speaking cat, Lena are present once
again. However, Pollyanna, is the main protagonist this time and other new and
interesting characters also have parts to play. It is difficult to say more
without massive spoilers. Suffice it to say, Pollyanna is not simply the
hard-drinking blonde she appears to be. She has as many layers as an onion, and
great courage.
Pollyanna is a whizz with figures, and is untangling
hardware store proprietor Lane Walker’s accounts. But why does she linger in
Torreya? Jack Slade runs a diner in town. The local police and other local
dignitaries frequent his tables. They are all Klansmen. Silent Sparrow comes in
every day too. She’s a bag lady who collects the deposits on pop bottles to get
by. The Klansmen don’t bother to keep their voices down. Nobody dare stand
against them. Chief of Police Rudy Flowers is an honest man. But one honest man
can’t make a lot of headway against generations of ingrained KKK activity.
However, it turns out that the days of the
Klan in Torreya are numbered. An archer starts picking off some of the
KKK’s grand panjandrums. Why? Just to tease them really. To set them against
each other. So that they make mistakes.
The action keeps on coming. The
conversations, the come-backs and put-downs are delightful. Much damage is
caused and characters one has come to care about die. Not all of them are
brought back to life.
You do not need to have read Campbell’s previous three Florida Magic novels
in order to get great enjoyment from this.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
Some adult language.
Format/Typo
Issues:
A small number of proofing errors.
Rating: ***** Five Stars
Reviewed
by: Judi Moore
Approximate
word count: 35-40,000 words
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