When attorney Cullen Molloy attends his fortieth high school reunion, he doesn’t expect to be defending childhood friends against charges of murder…In a small town on the high plains of Eastern New Mexico, life and culture are shaped by the farm roads defining the 640-acre sections of land homesteaders claimed at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Cullen and Shelby Blaine explore first love along … along these section roads during the 1960’s, forging a life-long emotional bond.As junior high school band nerds, Cullen and Shelby fall under the protection of football player and loner, Buddy Boyd. During their sophomore year of high school, Buddy is charged with killing a classmate and is confined to a youth correctional facility. When he returns to town facing the prospect of imprisonment as an adult, Cullen becomes Buddy’s protector.The unsolved case haunts the three friends into adulthood, and it isn’t until their fortieth reunion, that they’re forced to revisit that horrible night. When a new killing takes place, Cullen, Shelby and Buddy find themselves reliving the nightmare. Murder is an easy thing to hide along old country section roads.
more
August is prime time for summer reading, so why not take a trip down “Section Roads, ” Mike Murphey’s tale of an awkward small-town class reunion. OK, they’re all awkward, but when an alleged killer returns to town and a murder ensues, maybe awkward is an inadequate descriptor.
Hezekiah “Buddy” Boyd fled Arthur, N.M., after high school, his reputation torched by charges he was responsible for the shooting death of a girl, seemingly in a prank gone very wrong. His mother’s death brings him back to town as his classmates gather for their 40th reunion. Old friends embrace him, including the sweetheart lost in the shooting’s aftermath. But old enemies have not forgotten, nor forgiven.
Then, the peculiar murder of Damon Hammond, puller of Arthur’s strings and keeper of its secrets. Lawmen soon find out the question is not so much who killed him, but who didn’t, with Buddy and friends new and old among the suspects.
If this all sounds very dark, Murphey’s touch is light. Among his characters are the town fussbudget, and the C.I.A-ddled Weard, (really), whose off-the-wall insights help resolve Hammond’s murder, and untwist the events that resulted in the classmate’s death decades before.
“Section Roads” evokes the days of cruising Main Street, making out under a creaking windmill _ or wherever _ and nurturing friendships that sometimes really do withstand years and miles of separation.
Take a ride. Even in stark eastern New Mexico and west Texas, a landscape Murphey knows well from his upbringing, readers might find territory familiar to the heart, if not the head.
“Little towns don’t forget,” Murphey writes as the story begins. Arthur is a small town readers will remember.
I was not familiar with Mike Murphey’s work when I ask for this novel, Section Roads. I still know very little about Mike, but I do know where he was in the late 1960s! This b00k had me laughing and crying so many times – everything about it screams life in New Mexico in the ’60s and beyond. I graduated from Roswell High school – and life was very much like this for the class of 1967. Several of us were pretty weird… and the high plains desert has a lifestyle that is set up around section roads.
These people feel like friends and family. I adored Shelby and Cullen and loved Buddy. And Weard… I knew him well. The work of the police department could have been a transcript of life at the RPD as well – good buddies didn’t always follow the rules. This was an interesting mystery wrapped up in a coming of age story, set in the place I will always love.
This is a novel I can highly recommend to friends and family. I hope there will be more from Mike Murphey – SOON, please.
I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Mike Murphey, and Acorn Publishing. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.
He is invited to a school reunion and he expects fun as well as laughs but it does not stay that way. He ends up having to defend his friends against a murder charge. What will be do? Can be safe them? Did they do it? Follow them to see
Cullen Molloy attends his fourth high school reunion in a small town in New Mexico. He had expected some drama because of events that happened during high school but he did not expect to be using his skills as a lawyer to defend three friends from a murder charge.
This is a well written mystery that spans across the forty years. The characters were absolutely amazing, well developed and interesting. The narrative was extremely well done adding a sense of the times the story took place in and further added depth to the characters. The storyline was easy to read and jumps from the 60s to the 2000s, dealing with a old murder and a new one, weaving the two together with lots of twist, turns and surprises. I was impressed by the authors ability to write such a complex plot while making it easy to read and keeping the reader wanting more. It is a very good book worth reading.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I love everything about this book. Characters, the storyline, the action, the humor, and the writing. It is very well-written and intriguing. I highly recommend this book.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Nothing is as appears yet much is the same.
Section Roads – This is my first read by this author and I like it immensely. While written with plenty of storylines, the book flips back and forth between the 1960s and 2009, showing the characters as young students/adult and as matured adults.
There are plenty of secrets that come out in 2009, after a murder, that makes this a rollercoaster ride of intrigue and suspense. The variety of characters make this an interesting story. The emotions are plentiful and run the gamut showing why the characters’ actions happened.
The author does a wonderful job with his descriptions and the twists and turns that make this fast paced story hard to put down. I found this book on Booksprout. 5*
I enjoyed this mystery, which is also an entertaining tale of southern-fried repression.
As Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple once said, “There is a great deal of wickedness in village life.” This is equally, if not even more true of small town American life, particularly in 1960s era Bible Belt small towns like Arthur, New Mexico. On the surface is one story: It is 1966, and among a group of high school friends, a girl is killed. Although it is clear who did it, the tragedy is re-visited in a series of high school reunions, and what really happened gradually unfolds.
Underpinning this is a story of how love can be destroyed and people damaged when sex between teenagers is considered nasty instead of, well, normal.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. As the complete truth behind the killing slowly unravels, other secrets are revealed. So much depravity bubbles up to the surface that only someone raised in a smothering, uptight small town could believe it. The ending is both wise and wry. Old scores are settled and wounds heal, as in all good stories. I look forward to Mike Murphey’s next novel!
A cool mystery that takes us back to our teenage years in the 1960s.