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Bitter River

(Bell Elkins #2)

Julia Keller

3.66 · Rating details · 2,478 ratings · 390 reviews

In the next stunning novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning Julia Keller, following the popular A Killing in the Hills, a pregnant teenager is found murdered at the bottom of a river.

Phone calls before dawn are never good news. And when you're the county's prosecuting attorney, calls from the sheriff are rarely good news, either. So when Bell Elkins picks up the phone she alrea ...more

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Paperback, 400 pages

Published July 29th 2014 by Minotaur Books (first published September 1st 2013)

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Mar 08, 2015 Carol rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The Hook - When one of my GR friends reviewed Summer of the Dead the third Bell Elkins Mysteries it occurred to me I hadn’t even read the second in the series. I loved #1, A Killing In the Hills so what was I waiting for?

The Line – “Sometimes it was better to leave people with a clean bright dream of what might have been—than to get involved in the ragtag mess of reality.”

The Sinker – Like the John Denver song, Country Roads, Julia Keller’s Bitter River evokes the beauty and the hardship of the ...more

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Oct 04, 2013 Richard rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own

This is another wonderful story set in Acker's Gap, West Virginia. Bell Elkins is the star of the novel, a promising lawyer who returned home to become Raythune County's prosecuting attorney. Helped and assisted by her friend and long time anchor after a troubled childhood, Sheriff Nick Fogelsong.
With such main characters the series is crime centred; here it is an investigation into the murder of a pregnant teenager.
However the canvas is as broad as the Appalachian Mountains which brood over the This is another wonderful story set in Acker's Gap, West Virginia. Bell Elkins is the star of the novel, a promising lawyer who returned home to become Raythune County's prosecuting attorney. Helped and assisted by her friend and long time anchor after a troubled childhood, Sheriff Nick Fogelsong.
With such main characters the series is crime centred; here it is an investigation into the murder of a pregnant teenager.
However the canvas is as broad as the Appalachian Mountains which brood over these communities and the books are more a reflection of Keller's wonderful writing, her rich sense of place, country folf and their language.
In reading a few paragraphs you are transported to a far away place, not as a voyeur but in a sense of being there. The plot is ok and the crime is well investigated and deduced by honest police work but is the interactions with the assorted well-drawn characters who may only be mentioned over a few pages that make me love this series.
It has deep themes that matter to real people; you can identify with their hopes and dreams and the realities of hard times and encroaching poverty. Yet their spirit sings even in adversity, and subjects as diverse as "family", "home", "integrity" "honest labour" and "relationships" are covered in the story telling. At its heart this book has people and the potential for hope and redemption enables the reader to reflect as well as be entertained.
I love the tales of Garrison Keillor around Lake Wobegon and Julia Keller's books give me that same sense of ease and leave a smile on my face.
However, reader beware, this is a sugary account; life is hard and in sleepy towns horrors do occur and the body count stakes up here quickly in the second part of the book. But amid the loss and the grief it is the wonderful writing about the Mother's anguish at the graveside of her murdered daughter and the finality of gravestones recording each lifespan that moved me and told me more about death than any recalled modern thrillers and crime mysteries have that I have read. ...more

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Apr 21, 2014 Abigail rated it it was ok · review of another edition

When I read the first book in this series -- A Killing in the Hills -- I was frustrated by what seemed to be way too much back story in proportion to the amount of actual crime investigation, but chalked it up to setting the stage for the series. I expected this one to have less background -- we now know the characters and the town -- and more action. While there certainly was action -- much of it totally ridiculous -- there was also a ton of description of the run-down and hopeless town. It's r ...more

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Oct 01, 2014 Pat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nook, one-of-mine

Wow and wow again! I read book #1 "A Killing in the Hills" and enjoyed the setting of West Virginia and the character of Bell Elkins. I knew I wanted to read the second book of the series but got distracted by so much new stuff - you know, all the pledges of the next "Gone Girl". Well, this is teaching me to not neglect my series books. I loved this addition and it took some very unexpected turns that were quite shocking. I know I will not be taking so long to read the next one.

In this edition, ...more

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May 09, 2014 Anna rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Thanks to NetGalley and Headline for the ARC of this book.

Oh dear; unfortunately this is a really bad book.

The writing is really clunky. It uses far too many adjectives, loads of tautology, and there is lots of unnecessary detail – it’s fine just to tell me the sheriff opened his notebook; I don’t need to know it’s one of those ones with a cardboard front and spiral wire binding.

With crime and thriller books, you can sometimes forgive poor language if the plot is exciting and twisty or the chara Thanks to NetGalley and Headline for the ARC of this book.

Oh dear; unfortunately this is a really bad book.

The writing is really clunky. It uses far too many adjectives, loads of tautology, and there is lots of unnecessary detail – it’s fine just to tell me the sheriff opened his notebook; I don’t need to know it’s one of those ones with a cardboard front and spiral wire binding.

With crime and thriller books, you can sometimes forgive poor language if the plot is exciting and twisty or the characters are really engaging, however this book fails on both those accounts also.

The book is a crime novel set in a dying mountain town in West Virginia. It opens with the police finding the body of a murdered school girl, Lucinda Trimble, in a car in the eponymous Bitter River, and follows local law enforcement as they try (not all that hard or efficiently) to solve her murder.

Because the main protagonist, Bell Elkins, is a prosecutor rather than the police, it’s not actually her job to investigate the crime. Therefore, rather than watching the interesting bits of a criminal investigation, such as interviews with witnesses or searching the victim’s possessions for clues, we watch Bell bumbling around, drinking lots of coffee, helping her friend find a place to stay and having awkward conversations with her boyfriend. This also means that an awful lot of the book fails the ‘show don’t tell’ rule with Bell receiving reports second or third hand on the investigation, rather than discovering things for herself. Half way through the book, the only thing which seems to have been achieved as part of the investigation is the autopsy which confirms that Lucinda was murdered.

I was reading the book thinking ‘hang on a moment, the book starts with the discovery of Lucinda’s body, it’s clearly the most important plot line, why are we not spending more time trying to figure out who killed her?’.

Half-way through the book an explosion occurs and it’s clear there is an additional ridiculous terrorism/revenge storyline and obviously Lucinda’s murder is not interesting enough to warrant a whole book. The explosion storyline is a pointless attempt to add a bit of excitement to the plot, but it is just daft and it’s fairly obvious what is behind it. Once we get back to the Lucinda plot line and her killer is finally revealed, it’s not a great pay-off as there haven’t been enough clues to give the reader any inclination about the culprit.

This book is the second in a series following Bell Elkins, maybe if I had read the first book in the series I would care more about Bell and I would be invested in her relationships with her boyfriend, daughter and sister, but I simply did not care at all, they were an unwelcome distraction from the crime procedural which I was expecting to read. I certainly wouldn’t pick up any other books in this series as it was a real effort to read this one. ...more

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Feb 14, 2014 Monica rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-and-or-evil

Maybe it's sophomore slump, I hope, but this book was less successful on every level than her first. The description of the West Virginia mountain town is the best thing about the book. The characters, except for Bell and Nick the sheriff, are pretty forgettable, or unlikeable, or both.

There are too many plot lines, and several of them are just plain silly - the whole terrorist thing, for one - and the final reveal of the killer of the young woman found dead in the first chapter comes from so fa ...more

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Apr 25, 2014 Debbe rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I didn't think the 2nd in the series was as good a read as "A Killing in the Hills". The CIA plot seemed contrived. The murderer seemed fabricated for surprise with too little foreshadowing. I think there is hope for this series. The author has made it clear that Bell Elkins loves West VIrginia so let's move on to the real problems and crime in Appalachia and not rely on unlikely terrorist plots. I loved getting a glimpse of Mary Sue ( sheriff's wife) and hope her character plays a more prominen ...more

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Oct 03, 2013 Peter T. Tomaras rated it it was ok · review of another edition

WSJ gave good review, checked Amazon, there were some bad reviews, but most were good. I should have believed the bad ones: "Ordinary, and maybe plain bad," "Bogged Down in Details," and "Good Book Spoiled by Excess." I second all those emotions. This author apparently has a series featuring small-town D.A. Bell Elkins, and has a following, but I jumped in on this one, and I almost "returned" the Kindle version for a refund. Keller never met a modifier she doesn't love, and sets a record for tan ...more

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Mar 03, 2017 Jodi rated it liked it · review of another edition

I have it generous stars. It hovered between a 2.5 & a 3. Decent story line, but seeming like it's never ending. Kind of a tedious, dragged out read for me. I couldn't wait to just finish it and move on to my next book.

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May 24, 2015 Amy rated it liked it

Shelves: julia-keller, contemporary-fiction, mystery-suspense, murder, 2nd-in-a-series, crime, i-own, read-in-2015, west-virginia, female-attorney

3 1/2 Stars

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Aug 20, 2014 Naomi V rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014, mystery, fiction

3-1/2 stars

This was a really good mystery; different from most I've read lately. Bell Elkins has returned to her home in Ackers Gap to "do good" but she's not some young idealistic girl with no idea what she's getting into. She grew up in this Appalachian town in West Virginia and has lived in Washington DC, but wants to use her skill and education to make a difference where it's needed more.

Her high-school age daughter has recently moved to DC to live with her father and Bell is on her own now 3-1/2 stars

This was a really good mystery; different from most I've read lately. Bell Elkins has returned to her home in Ackers Gap to "do good" but she's not some young idealistic girl with no idea what she's getting into. She grew up in this Appalachian town in West Virginia and has lived in Washington DC, but wants to use her skill and education to make a difference where it's needed more.

Her high-school age daughter has recently moved to DC to live with her father and Bell is on her own now, working as the county prosecutor in a poverty-stricken area beset by the crime common to such a situation. Bell is smart, resourceful, mostly level-headed. This is a refreshing change from many of the mysteries I've read lately where the main character is so foolhardy you want to slap them upside the head for running headlong into trouble (on their own, of course, and without informing anybody.) Bell doesn't cause her own trouble or make it worse; she's professional and careful-- there's enough trouble without her adding to it

A young woman with a promising future is murdered and the autopsy reveals that she's pregnant. There's little physical evidence and either a dearth or plethora of suspects -- depends how you look at it. In the meantime, an old friend of Bell's shows up in town, perhaps complicating her love life with a younger man; there's a potshot taken at the courthouse; and a horrible fatal bombing of the local diner. How these pieces fit together and how Bell and the Sheriff, her friend Nick Fogelsong, figure it all out, are the story.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next Bell Elkins mystery, which is being released this month (August, 2014). I won't be going back to read the first one, tho. There were allusions to an earlier case where Bell's daughter was kidnapped and almost killed. This is another type of story line that bugs the hell out of me: the close friend/family member of the investigator who is in jeopardy. I prefer that the investigator just do her job without the added drama of involving personal motives to solve the case or having the bad guy after the investigator. ...more

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Aug 16, 2013 Jo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries, came-to-library

Julia Keller follows up last year’s terrific debut novel, A Killing in the Hills, with another gripping mystery set in West Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains.

In "Bitter River'', Prosecutor Bell Elkins continues to struggle with her personal life. She desperately misses her teen daughter Carla, who is living with Bell’s ex-husband in Washington, D.C. She is seeing a man 15 years younger than her and is trying to keep their relationship hidden. She keeps hoping her sister Shirley will finally come ...more

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Aug 10, 2014 Christine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Once again Julia Keller takes us back to the small community of Acker’s Gap and Bell Elkins. This is the follow up to ‘A Killing in the Hills’. Bell has to deal with the death of a pregnant teenager, in suspicious circumstances and some unusual violent acts taking place over the town.

I’ve grown to love the characters of Bell Elkins and the sheriff, Nick Fogelsong. There is a complexity to these characters and a real depth to them. Bell really is quite fascinating. We now know the horrific back s ...more

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Nov 21, 2013 Ami Sands rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I was disappointed in this sequel to A Killing in the Hills. I loved the first book, thought it was well written, suspenseful, smart, with a beautifully evoked setting.

The sequel was thinner, straining with a series of plot twists right up to the climax. The ending, though a shock, lacked credulity. A good ending to a mystery/thriller should be unexpected, but make perfect sense once you arrive there. This ending was yanked out of the blue and was absurd, not in keeping with the characters, as t ...more

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Apr 04, 2014 Kathy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Fabulous book...loved it as much as the first novel in the series, A Killing in the Hills. Julia Keller can write and she can tell a mean story. Bitter River can stand alone but I absolutely recommend reading the first novel as well as it is so good.

Bell Elkins, a lawyer who is the prosecutor in the small town in West Virginia where she grew up, is faced with the murder of a 16 year old girl who was found murdered in the Bitter River. Bell had a traumatic and violent childhood but has risen abov ...more

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Jul 29, 2014 Kate rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, mystery-crime-suspense

I'm on a murder mystery kick. And i like to say it like this: muurrrrrderrrrr mystery.

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Jun 30, 2018 Shaun rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2018

This is the second installment of the Bell Elkins series.

Though I liked the first, I felt as if the follow-up was better.

If you're looking for a fast-paced suspense or a non-stop action thriller, this is not it.

This is a "slow" moving mystery in which the actual mystery (or in this case interweaving mysteries) is background music for the real story which is the development of the town and the people in it.

Keller is a talented writer who loves her metaphors and similes. She also takes great care ...more

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Jun 25, 2013 Judi rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommended to Judi by: BookBrowse

Shelves: read-in-2013

I posted my review on BookBrowse since my review copy came from them. I am giving it two stars "It was O.K." and gave it the rating of "Average" on BookBrowse. Here's what I said on BookBrowse:

Set in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, it centers on solving a pregnant teenage girl’s murder in the small mountain town of Acker’s Gap in Rathune County. Belfa Elkins is prosecuting attorney of Raythune County and although the story is told in third person, it is mostly her point of view; her I posted my review on BookBrowse since my review copy came from them. I am giving it two stars "It was O.K." and gave it the rating of "Average" on BookBrowse. Here's what I said on BookBrowse:

Set in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, it centers on solving a pregnant teenage girl’s murder in the small mountain town of Acker’s Gap in Rathune County. Belfa Elkins is prosecuting attorney of Raythune County and although the story is told in third person, it is mostly her point of view; her thoughts on returning to and living in this small mountain town.

When Bell learns of the dead girl, she is driving back from Washington, DC after spending a brief amount of time with her own teenage daughter now living with her father (at sixteen, she had a choice as to which parent to live with and thus chose to get off the mountain). The dead girl is Lucinda Trimble, a star student being raised by her off-beat, hippie mother, Maddie, who lives in a cottage on Route 4 with a perpetual yard sale of home-made trinkets. “Maddie Trimble was everything Bell Elkins despised about some of the people who lived in this area. She had raised eccentricity to an art form, and helped perpetuate the stereotype that ‘mountain folk’ were exotic characters running around in bare feet and cutoff shorts, mixing up weeds and herbs to make nutty potions intended to heal everything from heartaches to hemorrhoids.”

Sheriff Nick Fogelsong is Bell’s counterpart in the investigations and a good friend. But the two of them get off to bad start with this investigation. Nick used to see Maddy years ago, before Maddy started seeing Lucinda’s father. That was over seventeen years ago, “Except in these parts, the story never ended. No matter how long ago it was, Nick Fogelsong had a link to Maddie Trimble, a tie. When he talked to her these days, Bell thought, he probably had to raise his voice a little bit to be heard over a soft confusion of echoes.” Nick has a blind eye to Maddy... and Bell bluntly points this out.

There are two other main story threads running through this novel. Bell’s sister was released on parole nearly 5 months earlier after almost 30 years in jail for killing their father. Bell expected to pick her up at the prison and take her back to Acker’s Gap to help her get back on her feet, but when she went to get Shirley, Shirley had already left, and did not leave any contact information. Bell feels confident that Shirley will make her way back to Acker’s Gap and thus is compelled to stay there until she does. The reason for Shirley’s imprisonment and the debt that Belfa owes here sister is backdrop to help provide an understanding as to Bell’s reasons for being/staying there.

The third thread involves Matt Harless, an old family friend/neighbor from when Bell and Sam were still married. On Bell’s latest trip to D.C., she is surprised when Matt joins them (her ex-husband Sam, his girlfriend and their daughter, Carla) for dinner. As it turns out Matt has retired from the military and needs time to decompress and wants to see Acker’s Gap, the place that he heard so much about from Bell all those years ago when they used to run together. As it turns out, Matt has as many secrets as anyone in Acker’s Gap. And may or may not be involved in the a tragic explosion that occurs about halfway through the book.

Although this is technically a murder mystery, it is a literary one in that the setting plays as much a role in the story as the characters. Bell (or the author Julia Keller) shares insight into this community, such as the familiarity of people, the long memories, the fact that “In a small town everybody is next of kin to everybody else.” She also spends a bit of time reflecting on the socio-economics and the inherit problems. For example, she explains how the prescription drug problem is far worse problem than the more widely known Meth problem --- and why it is more difficult for law enforcement to deal with. Or, “The fact that over half of the children in Raythune County go to bed hungry a night...” And even reveals a bit of interesting history as to how West Virginia because a state under Abraham Lincoln.

Julia Keller creatively uses metaphors to bring home a point. But to be honest, some of them just left me scratching my head as I tried to figure them out. For example, “The flounce and swoop of his accent reminded Bell of a dust ruffle on a bedspread.” Huh? Or “Her hair was the color of a dirty Q-tip...” (I prefer not to think on this one too long.) and “she heard a faint and sustained jingle in the distance, almost a choral singing. The sound, she knew, came for Paw Paw Creek...” (Choral singing? Please, just give me the gurgling brook!)

But every now and then she comes up with some really good analogies: “Gossip leaked out of a county courthouse like chicken broth through a slotted spoon;” or “Dumping coffee on an empty stomach-- which she’d just done-- was akin to walking in a biker bar and calling the first guy you see a candy-ass. Just asking for trouble;” or “Seeing Wendy Doggett in a cell in the Raythune County Jail would be a little jarring, Bell had assumed, like finding escargot on the menu at White Castle.”

From the start, it is assumed that the murderer is someone that knows Lucinda. “Statistics tell the tale, folks. Look around. You’ve got a heck of a lot more to fear from that person sitting right next to you on the couch night after night than you do from a stranger hanging out in a dark alley.” Even at that, in a small town there are a lot of people that know this girl, and thus a lot of suspects to get through.

“Small towns, Bell thought. Jesus.”

...more

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Jul 10, 2014 Bookread2day rated it liked it · review of another edition

Concealed beneath the water, her body waits to be found.

Sixteen-year-old pregnant Lucinda Trimble from Acker's Gap High-school is found dead in a car in the Bitter River.

Sheriff Nick Fogelsong had a relationship with Lucinda's mother Maddie Trimble twenty seven years ago. Telling Maddie that her daughter was dead was the hardest thing that he ever had to do in his life.

Maddie did not understand how her daughter was dead. She had checked her daughter before she went to bed and could see that her ...more

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May 09, 2015 Gail Strickland rated it liked it · review of another edition

Meh. Takes lots of patience to read all the way to the end.

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Aug 21, 2017 Maddy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-reads

PROTAGONIST: Bell Elkins, county prosecuting attorney
SETTING: Ackers Gap, WV
SERIES: #2
RATING: 4.25
WHY: Bell Elkins had a conflicted history in the small town of Acker's Gap, WV, but decided to return and put her demons behind her. She is the county prosecuting attorney and works closely with the local sheriff. She is called in when a pregnant 16-year-old girl is found underwater in a car. As they investigate, tragedy hits the town in the form of an explosion that kills 6 people. This was such a ...more

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Apr 23, 2018 Gail rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I like Bell, the main character. At times I am disgusted with her for her actions and how she treats people -- but she always works hard and follows through on her promises. She has a bad temper which shows sometimes in not very flattering ways. In other words, she is realistic! I love that about her. Great writer! I plan to read more of her books.

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Jan 11, 2019 Sharon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is an intriguing mystery with wonderfully fully developed characters that I feel I would recognize if I bumped into them on the street.

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Aug 08, 2017 Christy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is the first book I've read by Julia Keller. I picked it up at a yard sale a couple of years ago and put it in my pile of books to read. Now that I've gotten introduced to her books, I'll be sure to read more! I really loved the setting and the characters. It is a great suspense!

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Feb 10, 2019 Jo Ann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Kept me wondering - loved it!

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Aug 28, 2016 Beth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016

I've pretty much hit the motherlode of great mysteries in the last few reads. After A Great Reckoning by the wonderful Louise Penny, I just thoroughly enjoyed Julia Keller's second book featuring the very appealing heroine Bell Elkins. This one was terrific. Bell lives in a depressed area of West Virginia in a small mountain town that once thrived with working coal mines. Now times are really, really hard, and this book's vivid description of the ethos and struggle of a hardscrabble life here in ...more

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Jan 15, 2017 Eleanor rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Where to begin? This was just a hot mess, and a real disappointment. I tired of reading the italicized inner dialogues Bell had with herself, but even more than that, poor editing made this one begin to run off the rails early on. To wit: a big point is made that Bell doesn't allow her lover, Clay, to ever spend the night with her because Acker's Gap is a small town and people talk.... and then a few chapters later, we open to the two of them having breakfast after spending the night together, w ...more

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Oct 18, 2014 Carly rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, fiction, crime-fiction

When I found out that Keller had made Bell Elkins into a recurring character in a series, I was thrilled! The writing is not exceptional, but it is solid. And I love a good mystery. This book, and the first in the series, are sort of like wearing pajamas and watching a Law & Order marathon. Comforting, compelling but not really challenging.

I enjoyed this book, until the twists and plot resolutions were revealed. They just weren't very good, to be honest. They felt haphazardly decided last mi ...more

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Jul 04, 2013 Diane rated it liked it · review of another edition

Originally posted on bookbrowse.com

Whole Lotta Twisted Going-ons
Bell is as tough as the mountains that cradle the small town of Acker's Gap, where she serves as County Prosecutor. Hell, there sure is a lot of criminal activity in that place! You got a young girl murdered, some crazy guy shooting an elderly lady, and terrorist blowing up the oldest building in town. This is in addition to the ordinary business of sneaky love trysts, troubled families, and missing sisters. Folks trust their sharp- ...more

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Jun 23, 2014 Brenda rated it liked it · review of another edition

didn't read the first book, but don't think it made too much of a difference. (Though I would like to know what happened to make her daughter move away.) Poor Appalachian town, coal, but not too much business left, except hard feelings everywhere. Pregnant teen is found murdered, in the river. She was the bright star of her generation, had tons of potential, who could have done this to her? Rich boyfriend, his wheelchair bound brother, their mother? Her best friend? Good twists to the plot.
Didn' ...more

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About Julia Keller

Julia Keller

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Julia was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia. She graduated from Marshall University, then later earned a doctoral degree in English Literature at Ohio State University.

She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and has taught at Princeton and Ohio State Universities, and the University of Notre Dame. She is a guest essayist on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS and has been a contri ...more