When
hunter, John Moon accidentally shoots a runaway girl while poaching deer on
state land he has to make a choice. His dilemma is made worse by the drugs and
cash he finds hidden at her campground. Whatever he decides, the consequences
will be something he can neither predict nor control.
A
Single Shot is a taught thriller that drags you along in the emotional wake of
John Moon’s guilt and necessity. Early on the plot put me in mind of Cormac
McCarthy’s, No Country For Old Men, but as the story progresses it is soon
plain to see that John Moon is more than just a cut and paste rehash of
McCarthy’s, Llewlyn Moss. Moon is a man with a strong set of beliefs, he has
his own code. But his downward spiral started long before he pulled the trigger
and in the best traditions of noir no matter how hard he tries, his subsequent actions
only seem to hasten that decent.
Make
no mistake this is a gritty and harrowing novel that deals with some pretty
dark subject matter. The narrative is largely well paced and genuinely engaging,
but it does suffer from occasional unexplained flat spots, which can leave you feeling
a little puzzled, like finding a few feet of smooth blacktop in the middle of a
rutted farm track. This minor grumble is more than made up for by Jones’ wonderfully
authentic dialogue and his strong sense of place.
I
fear that many of those lured in by Daniel Woodrell’s curious and at times
almost disparaging introduction will have their resolve sorely tested by the
disturbing nature of A Single Shot. The violence and the graphic sexual scenes
will no doubt alienate a lot of casual readers.
While
A Single Shot may never be a book that is clutched lovingly to the breast of
mainstream country noir, if you are an aficionado of the genre it is a book that
you won’t want to miss. I found it to be a well written and thought provoking read.
Thanks
to my buddy, Brian Panowich for turning me on to this one.
