A Killing in the Hills, by Julia Keller

Journalists usually employ a stripped back, direct style required for reporting, which can be too spare when used in fiction. The other trap for former journalists is to overcompensate, cramming too many adjectives into each sentence, bloating descriptions. Julia Keller falls into the latter category, tending to the florid. She nevertheless provides a clear picture of the causes and effects of grinding generational poverty in a mountainous rural district. Prosecuting Attorney Bell Elkins is a survivor of such a region, with a traumatic childhood. She escaped her background but is driven to return to her impoverished home town to try to effect change. Unfortunately a few good people battling the odds against the war on drugs are pissing in the wind when nothing is done to address the systemic causes. Plot and characters suffer from a credibility deficit. Bell, her bratty teen daughter Carla and the cold-blooded killer all take actions at various points that just don’t tally with their motivations. The plot completely falls apart towards the end and it is no longer possible to suspend disbelief about the behaviour of the killer and the identity of the big drug crime boss. The road to a hellish novel is paved with good intentions.