The Hangman's Knot

Billy Tree #2

by David Wiltse

It's the hottest summer ever in Falls City, Nebraska. Acting deputy Billy Tree is struggling to readjust to his old hometown as well as recover from the shattering tragedy that ended his Secret Service career. But amid the shimmering heat, deserted barns, and burning plains, a horrifying, decades-old injustice is about to rear its ugly head when a stranger with a vendetta arrives, hell-bent on making Falls City pay for its sins...

It all begins for Billy when sinister miniature nooses arrive in his mail. And it soon escalates when deadly shots ring out in the night. Hot on the trail of a relentless killer, Billy discovers a viper's nest of secrets and lies that turns everything he thought he knew about his own family and the woman he loves into terrifying doubt-and renews the deep hatred that still festers beneath Falls City's rural peace...

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction

331 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 19, 2002

About the author

David Wiltse was born in 1940 in Lincoln, Nebraska. He graduated from the University of Nebraska and currently lives in a small town in Connecticut. He has written plays for stage, screen and television and won a Drama Desk award for most promising playwright for Suggs (first produced at Lincoln Center in 1972). Always popular with Bookhaunts readers, his novels include the John Becker Novels and Billy Tree/Falls City Novels.

Reviews

[Dara S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not as good as some of his other titles.

[Beverly Laude · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story idea was good, but I skipped a large portion of the tedious, ponderous descriptions that really didn't add anything to the main story. I only finished the book to find out what the whole thing was about.....sorry I wasted my time!

[Briar Campbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't friendly Nebraska. Though the MC, Billy Tree, starts off seeming like an Andy Griffith-type mild mannered guy, the things he deals with in his small town are not Andy Griffith material. Instead, they are a stark brutal, quasi-farming community simmering with rage and prejudices. Tree himself is still recovering from PTSD of a past career as a Secret Serviceman for the White House, and as the story goes on, he examines his own ugly prejudices when he crosses paths with a black man whose alleged wrongdoings get entangled with his personal life.
The prose of the book contains plenty of introspective moments that sound nearly poetic in nature, and the style of it kept me reading despite my lack of fondness for the subject matter. It doesn't really make up for the fact that the characters have terrible communication problems, but At least these problems sounded authentic rather than contrived, steeped as it is in palpable past harms and mistrust, but it still gets annoying from time to time.
At the center of this inferno is a postcard depicting a horrible atrocity, leading Tree to learn that the past doesn't always remain safely tucked away in the past.

[Donna Colbey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me think. I had never heard the difference between prejudiced and racist ( I avoided sociology in college like the plague!). I wish there was a third book to see if Billy emerged a better man....

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those satisfyingly unsatisfying endings. Perfect.