Status Updates From The Killing Hills

So far, I'm intrigued and liking the characters and setting.

"No politician ever shook hands with an Appalachian except to consummate the theft of land and mineral rights."

"Dogs were loyal and cats were survivors. Mick figured he was a little of both."

"He’d heard that time heals all wounds, which he knew to be a lie. Time didn’t heal anything, it made you forget. Whiskey accelerated the process."

I've slid right into this book. An easy, engaging storytelling style that is also vivid and cliché free. The description of life in the hills feels real. It's not sentimental or nostalgic but it is empathetic - an insider's view.

Oh and there's also a murder to solve.

What a page turner! Started this late today. Can’t put it down.

Struggling to get going with this.

Finora “fa” molto Lansdale nello stile e nella vicenda, bellissimo!

Love this kind of writing. Such a great genre that doesn’t get enough attention.

Lo que me está gustando este librito 🥰🥰

I really enjoy this book. It reminds me a lot of twin peaks!! Another thing is that (for me) it’s a very quick read with short chapters.

Liked especially the language of Kentucky hill people--salty and funny.

Short easy chapters

"Mick se dirigió a su camioneta y condujo lo más despacio posible, obligándose a admirar las montañas, las flores de los jardines, los árboles ornamentales plantados junto a las casas. Una tenía un enrejado cubierto de campanillas. Era una calle bonita. Con el tiempo superaría el asesinato, pero no la tala indiscriminada de las laderas."

"Mick se sentía como una carcasa, como si estuviera fuera de su cuerpo contempland cómo otra persona ocupaba su vida. No era él quien conducía la camioneta, era la otra persona, el otro Mick. Estaba enfadado, agotado y perdido. "

"-Un bonito lugar con una historia dura.
- No hay una sola montaña por aquí de la que no se pueda decir lo mismo."

"-¿Te gusta beber bourbon y dormir bajo la lluvia?
-Si.
- ¿Por qué?
- Porque en Irak, Afganistan y Siria no pude hacerlo. No había bourbon. Ni lluvia."

My first Offutt, and loving it. He knows his subject because the people speak and act just as they would in a closed hill community.

Mick continued east, thinking about the Caudill brothers, Virgil and Boyd. He wondered if every family history was that sad, or just in the hills. Appalachian people lived by old codes that compelled them to take action. Affronts were always personal. Acts of vengeance maintained themselves through generations.

A sense of despair settled over him like a quilt made of concrete.

Wilson looked at Mick as if he were a pup who’d shit on the porch.

Four had brightly dyed hair. The other two, male and female, wore their hair in short mohawks greased to a woodpecker’s crest. In the way of small-town rebels everywhere, they conformed to each other. Mick wondered who owned the car, who paid for the gasoline and hair dye.

He had often imagined a life like this for Peggy and himself—finishing their days side by side on a porch, quietly enjoying the birds, trees, and flowers. He wanted to measure time by the growth of trees.

He drove to Bob’s, a gas station that sold milk, eggs, cigarettes, and fishing tackle. A shelf held a row of orange life-preservers inside plastic bags covered in dust, evidence that people in the hills were less concerned with drowning than spending money. As his grandfather said, people who can’t swim should stay off a lake.

Linda waited, knowing Knox would fill the silence. On average, men tended to interrupt a woman after eight seconds. If a woman didn’t talk, most men couldn’t last four seconds, according to social scientists with government funding and a stopwatch.

The older two boys were lost to her—one to the graveyard and the other stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. For a while she worried about him in California with all those serial killers and vegetarians but she figured a Marine could take care of himself.

Shifty Kissick made her bed every morning, careful not to let the pillows rest on each other lest such a sight be too suggestive of sexual conduct.

Mick’s great-grandfather had built the four-room cabin by hand, solid construction with corners that still held true, the walls plumb, a floor as level as water. He’d picked this place due solely to the rough terrain. The hills were too steep and the hollers too narrow to log the woods...The two old men taught Mick all they knew about the woods, wisdom that ran back to the Great Depression.

He’d heard that time heals all wounds, which he knew to be a lie. Time didn’t heal anything, it made you forget. Whiskey accelerated the process.
~ Mick Hardin

What a fascinating book! It's a story of murder and betrayal and people who live in backwoods but it is written in the most eloquent way. Loved it!