Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter in Pick-a-Shelf

Aug 30, 2017 Rachel N. rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2017, mystery, reading-road-trip-u-s, crime, disappearance, friendship, mississippi

Larry Ott, a white mostly outcast child, and Silas Jones, a poor African American child, form a friendship during one summer but are soon torn apart. Larry is later suspected of murdering a girl he took on a date after she disappears. Twenty years later another girl disappears and Larry is once again suspected while Silas is the local constable. Not so much a mystery as a story of the two men and their lives. I really liked both of the main characters and enjoyed switching between their pasts an ...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Suzanne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mysteries

Very powerful story. Really excellent character development. I felt like I was there in southern Mississippi.

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Jan 12, 2011 Tara rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2011-favorites

What a wonderful tale. It is a tale of secrets. Some of these secrets are the parents, hidden aside and not talked about until discovered by their kids. Some secrets are those that are not told due to fear and possibly resentment. Other secrets are never shared because no one cared enough to hear them until it is too late.
In this wonderfully written tale, two boys, now men, must come to terms with the secrets they hold and the repercussions those secrets had.
The two main characters became frie ...more

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Nov 19, 2010 Ruth Ferguson rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobook, mystery, literature, first-reads

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a solid story at times very good, but in the end I have to leave it with three stars because unless I missed it somehow the mystery at the heart of the story was never solved completely. And it annoys the heck out of me that the characters just seem to be OK with this little oversight.

Over 25 years ago a teenage girl goes to the drive thru movie with the unpopular Larry, much to his surprise too. She is never seen again. Her body is never found, no clue of her Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a solid story at times very good, but in the end I have to leave it with three stars because unless I missed it somehow the mystery at the heart of the story was never solved completely. And it annoys the heck out of me that the characters just seem to be OK with this little oversight.

Over 25 years ago a teenage girl goes to the drive thru movie with the unpopular Larry, much to his surprise too. She is never seen again. Her body is never found, no clue of her is discovered. As a result for all intents and purposes Larry's life pretty much ends and that of his parents. His love of Stephen King and other horror books just adds to the mystery surrounding Larry. He becomes known as "scary Larry" and no one will have anything to do with him.

At times the story is heartbreaking, can you imagine going day and day out without talking to anyone aside from the clerk at Kentucky Fried Chicken? Larry lives miles from anyone in a small Mississippi community. Although he takes over his father's auto repair shop and faithful shows up six days a week - the only customers he ever has is out of towners in distress.

Larry, is white, and has suffered a rough life but oddly is not a depressed person. He is simply resigned to this is the way things are for him. He has no expectations from life. And then he gets shot in the chest - with his own gun.

Because another girl is missing he is a suspect and the police think he likely shot himself out of guilt and not wanting to face his lonely life anymore. Silas, a member of the small town law enforcement team is not quite convinced. Likely some of this is due to his guilty feelings about being totally abandoning Larry when their classmate went missing.

Silas, more often called 32 in honor of his baseball jersy number, escaped Mississippi years ago, but decided to move back a few years ago. He has ignored Larry's few attempts at reaching out to rekindle their friendship. Another reason why Silas likely feels he owes Larry a little less than a rush to judgement.

The two boys despite their differences in status and race (Silas is the only child of a single unwed black mother) had secretly spent a summer playing and exploring together. Before Larry's father interjects himself into their relationship. Things happen and words are said that cannot be unsaid.

My key problem with this story is they solve everything, people share their secrets and they deal with the fallout of those secrets. They even violently solve the mystery of the latest girl missing. but what happen to the first girl. We learn one key fact and then NOTHING else and everyone seems fine with this.

I was not - if you are going to give me a Hollywood ending for everything else in the story - why not the mystery at the center of what shaped Larry's life for over 25 years? ...more

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