Kirkus Review
Private investigator Earl Marcus thought he had battled every evil hidden in the North Georgia mountains, but when his girlfriend goes missing, he finds a level of depravity that surprises even him.Having tackled his father's fundamentalist church, exposed child abusers, and been bitten by a poisonous snake in Early's debut (Heaven's Crooked Finger, 2017), Earl has more than earned some peaceful time with his love, Atlanta police officer Mary Hawkins. Urged, however, by Ronnie, a sketchy friend of Earl's, to investigate mysterious doings at a mazelike cornfield, Earl and Mary become disoriented, and suddenly Mary disappears. It doesn't take long for the plot to involve corrupt politicians, criminals, and legends of a racist stalker named Old Nathaniel, who may have captured Mary because she's African-American. Earl calls up the few friends he can trust, including a blind man named Rufus and Ronnie, whose poor choices in life are balanced by his unswerving loyalty to Earl. If this were the sort of story you'd subject to logic, you might also think Earl would involve Mary's professional cop colleagues, but then he wouldn't have a reason to go around the mountains beating people up, getting shot and stabbedand besides, he's the one who loves Mary. Earl, who narrates the story, interrupts the already pedestrian prose too frequently to muse on everything from the nature of love to the meaning of dreams.Early's hero is a nice guy who certainly means well, but only those readers interested in further exploring mountain tropes will want to follow him on his next adventure. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Early (Heaven's Crooked Finger, 2017) takes a frightening look at how the agenda of white supremacists can be inadvertently enabled, in this case by the weary main character, PI Earl Marcus, who has returned to his Georgia hometown in fictional Coulee County, where he is asked by a local citizen to conduct what should be a simple investigation. There are no simple investigations, of course, and this one becomes personal after Earl's girlfriend, Mary Hawkins, who is black, disappears in a cornfield that is alleged to be the home of a malevolent spirit who exists to keep black children too frightened to visit the white neighborhood. Marcus' quest to find Mary emboldens those residents who strive for a future that's more backward than its past and who seek to use the supernatural as a force to support their racist goals. (Note that the book includes racist and homophobic language used by Klansmen.) Dan Brown's fans should enjoy the mixing of supernatural and thriller elements here; those who favor southern mysteries with gothic elements will be another audience.--Henrietta Verma Copyright 2018 Booklist