- Paperback: 608 pages
- Publisher: Walker & Company (23 Dec 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0802716873
- ISBN-13: 978-0802716873
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 13.9 x 4.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 455,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
By combining all three of the Turner novels under one title, author James Sallis creates one of the most unforgettable characters who
"lived," in a series of stunning, connected novels. However dramatic, skillfully developed, and intelligently written each novel is separately (and one could argue convincingly that each of these is individually a prize-winner deserving of the best of the year award for noir fiction), the idea of reading them all in one package is a no-brainer. Sallis is a writer of the first order, one of the best contemporary novelists in America today. Note that I say "novelists," without adding any limitations, such as "mystery writer," "thriller writer," or "southern gothic writer." Sallis packs more information into a single sentence than most other authors do in a whole paragraph.
Sallis's novels are dark, often noir, versions of what he and his characters see as reality. Cypress Grove, the first in the series, introduces Turner, a man who was a soldier, a Memphis cop turned convict, and a therapist, who has decided to escape from the pressure cooker of big city police work and go to the boonies, far from Memphis. When local Sheriff Lonnie Bates, a continuing character in the series, asks for his help with a murder, Turner reluctantly agrees. In Cripple Creek, the second novel, he is also drawn into the investigation of local crime when a routine traffic stop uncovers a satchel with two hundred thousand dollars in the car of a speeder. "Goombahs" from Memphis organized crime attack the station house to release the prisoner from jail, and Sheriff Lonnie Bates and his daughter are seriously injured. As acting sheriff, Turner investigates, making some serious enemies.
The concluding novel, Salt River, takes place two years later. Turner, by now, has seen and done it all. Though he has remained in Cripple Creek, his life is dark, sad, and full of the knowledge that unexpected horrors can cripple, if not kill, even the most flickering of one's personal hopes. As he investigates a car theft involving the son of the sheriff, a murder near a utopian commune in the hills, and the possible kidnapping of the sheriff's wife, Turner shows us that life is messy, that people's lives are always unfinished stories, and that all one can do is muddle through, with little expectation that one's efforts will bear fruit. "There are mountain men or cowboys inside us all, Henry David Thoreau and Clint Eastwood riding double in our bloodstreams and our dreams."
Spare with details and minimalist in style, Sallis emphasizes characters in these intelligent and compressed novels of ideas and identity. Every word counts here, even when those words are not adding to the plot. Sallis's lean, mean style reflects both his main character's personality and that style of noir writing in which events are presented and the reader is left to draw conclusions. Through flashbacks and flashforwards, he shows Turner in action, a man genuinely kind and empathetic, at the same time that he is violent and filled with bloodlust. Beautifully crafted, carefully written, and stylistically unforgettable, Sallis's Turner series creates one of the most fascinating characters in contemporary mystery writing. n Mary Whipple
Cypress Grove
Cripple Creek
Salt River
Drive
Eye of the Cricket (A Lew Griffin novel)
A James Sallis Reader
"lived," in a series of stunning, connected novels. However dramatic, skillfully developed, and intelligently written each novel is separately (and one could argue convincingly that each of these is individually a prize-winner deserving of the best of the year award for noir fiction), the idea of reading them all in one package is a no-brainer. Sallis is a writer of the first order, one of the best contemporary novelists in America today. Note that I say "novelists," without adding any limitations, such as "mystery writer," "thriller writer," or "southern gothic writer." Sallis packs more information into a single sentence than most other authors do in a whole paragraph.
Sallis's novels are dark, often noir, versions of what he and his characters see as reality. Cypress Grove, the first in the series, introduces Turner, a man who was a soldier, a Memphis cop turned convict, and a therapist, who has decided to escape from the pressure cooker of big city police work and go to the boonies, far from Memphis. When local Sheriff Lonnie Bates, a continuing character in the series, asks for his help with a murder, Turner reluctantly agrees. In Cripple Creek, the second novel, he is also drawn into the investigation of local crime when a routine traffic stop uncovers a satchel with two hundred thousand dollars in the car of a speeder. "Goombahs" from Memphis organized crime attack the station house to release the prisoner from jail, and Sheriff Lonnie Bates and his daughter are seriously injured. As acting sheriff, Turner investigates, making some serious enemies.
The concluding novel, Salt River, takes place two years later. Turner, by now, has seen and done it all. Though he has remained in Cripple Creek, his life is dark, sad, and full of the knowledge that unexpected horrors can cripple, if not kill, even the most flickering of one's personal hopes. As he investigates a car theft involving the son of the sheriff, a murder near a utopian commune in the hills, and the possible kidnapping of the sheriff's wife, Turner shows us that life is messy, that people's lives are always unfinished stories, and that all one can do is muddle through, with little expectation that one's efforts will bear fruit. "There are mountain men or cowboys inside us all, Henry David Thoreau and Clint Eastwood riding double in our bloodstreams and our dreams."
Spare with details and minimalist in style, Sallis emphasizes characters in these intelligent and compressed novels of ideas and identity. Every word counts here, even when those words are not adding to the plot. Sallis's lean, mean style reflects both his main character's personality and that style of noir writing in which events are presented and the reader is left to draw conclusions. Through flashbacks and flashforwards, he shows Turner in action, a man genuinely kind and empathetic, at the same time that he is violent and filled with bloodlust. Beautifully crafted, carefully written, and stylistically unforgettable, Sallis's Turner series creates one of the most fascinating characters in contemporary mystery writing. n Mary Whipple
Cypress Grove
Cripple Creek
Salt River
Drive
Eye of the Cricket (A Lew Griffin novel)
A James Sallis Reader
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
On the back cover of this three-novel volume, the genre is listed as MYSTERY. I've also heard the books spoken of as crime novels or even thrillers. None of these catch-all descriptions come close to capturing the uniqueness of Cypress Grove, Cripple Creek and Salt River. For a start, for a crime/thriller novel, the actual main plotline is extremely spare. And when the denouement comes, it is less important to discover whodunnit and why, than to see how the main character in the book has developed.
This character is John Turner, surely one of the most fascinating protagonists in a book of this type. He is a Vietnam vet, an ex-cop, an ex-con and an ex-therapist. This varied and violent personal life is revealed little by little, in fragments, sometimes almost as though he were addressing the reader personally. The man it has created is wise, world-weary, humane and fallible. Relationships - with his friends and associates, his daughter, his lover - are critically self-examined, the past informing his every word and thought to a degree not often explored in fiction of this type.
I loved these books. I kept reading them too fast, eager to get to the end of each of the situations he'd set up, and had to make myself slow down. If I hadn't, I would perhaps have missed some of the most poetic language and pitch-perfect dialogue I've read in a long time. James Sallis is a superb writer. If there is a mystery, it's why he isn't better known. Maybe the film adaptation of Drive will help to rectify that.
This character is John Turner, surely one of the most fascinating protagonists in a book of this type. He is a Vietnam vet, an ex-cop, an ex-con and an ex-therapist. This varied and violent personal life is revealed little by little, in fragments, sometimes almost as though he were addressing the reader personally. The man it has created is wise, world-weary, humane and fallible. Relationships - with his friends and associates, his daughter, his lover - are critically self-examined, the past informing his every word and thought to a degree not often explored in fiction of this type.
I loved these books. I kept reading them too fast, eager to get to the end of each of the situations he'd set up, and had to make myself slow down. If I hadn't, I would perhaps have missed some of the most poetic language and pitch-perfect dialogue I've read in a long time. James Sallis is a superb writer. If there is a mystery, it's why he isn't better known. Maybe the film adaptation of Drive will help to rectify that.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Superb!
James Sallis writes wonderful, profound, reflective, existential novels. These are amongst his best. It would be difficult to overstate how good they are.
Published 8 months ago by David Jackson
Superb collection
bought this for my summer hols thinking it would last a week or so - had read the complete collection in three days! Read more
Published 11 months ago by D. Roberts
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