Winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing Acclaimed author and “remarkably gifted storyteller” (The Charlotte Observer) David Joy returns with a fierce and tender tale of a father, an addict, a lawman, and the explosive events that come to unite them.When his addict son gets in deep with his dealer, it takes everything Raymond Mathis has to bail him out … Raymond Mathis has to bail him out of trouble one last time. Frustrated by the slow pace and limitations of the law, Raymond decides to take matters into his own hands.
After a workplace accident left him out of a job and in pain, Denny Rattler has spent years chasing his next high. He supports his habit through careful theft, following strict rules that keep him under the radar and out of jail. But when faced with opportunities too easy to resist, Denny makes two choices that change everything.
For months, the DEA has been chasing the drug supply in the mountains to no avail, when a lead–just one word–sets one agent on a path to crack the case wide open . . . but he’ll need help from the most unexpected quarter.
As chance brings together these men from different sides of a relentless epidemic, each may come to find that his opportunity for redemption lies with the others.
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Another terrific book by David Joy showing the dark side of the opioid epidemic in our North Carolina mountains.
I loved this book! Last year, I read David Joy’s previous novel, The Line That Held Us, and was blown away and knew that I needed to read more of this amazing author’s work. Well, I finally had the chance to sit down and read his newest book and found it to be equally impressive. This was one of those books that I did not want to put down once I picked it up and felt moved by the story.
This book deals with the difficult topic of drug abuse. I found the descriptions to be incredibly vivid and sometimes eye-opening. Several different perspectives come together to tell this tale of desperation. From an addict, we see the uncontrollable need for the next high and how the entire focus on his life has become centered on doing whatever necessary to get the drugs he needs. From the parent of an addict, we see how much they want to help and their frustration with how little they are able to actually do. We get to see law enforcement take steps to cut off the supply and how slowly the system move.
This book is set in the mountains of North Carolina and I really felt those mountains come to life in this story. The characters were very well-developed and the descriptions were incredibly vivid. The writing was beautiful despite the rather harsh reality of the story. I was really drawn into the story and wondered how things would eventually work out for these characters that I had grown to care about.
I would highly recommend this book to others. I found this to be a beautifully written tale of desperation and the need to take steps towards change. I am now considering myself to be a card-carrying member of the David Joy fan club (is there such a thing?) and will definitely be planning to read more of his work in the future.
I received a digital review copy of this book from G.P. Putnam’s Sons via Edelweiss.
Over the last year or so, David Joy came on my radar thanks to a massive amount of praise being heaped upon him by fellow reviewers and authors. I had intended to check his work out sooner and bought several of his prior releases, including his Edgar Award finalist for Best Debut, Where All Light Tends to Go (the cover on this thing…good lord, that’s a nice one!) and The Line That Held Us, the book that so, so, so many people had been raving. That was at the tail end of 2018, and I still haven’t gotten around to reading either of them because publishers keep putting out new stuff and it’s hard to keep up, damn them! When I saw Joy’s latest on NetGalley, I requested it so that I would have all the incentive I needed to finally dig into the man’s work, and lo and behold I got approved.
I see now why so many in my particular circle of readers and reviewers have been so effusive in mentioning the works of David Joy lately (I see you, E., George, and Tracy!), and I am – yet again – kicking myself for not having gotten around to these stories of Appalachian noir sooner. Of course, the good news in circumstances like these is that I at least have the pleasure of catching up now.
When These Mountains Burn is a story of drugs, loss, and revenge set in the mountains of North Carolina. It’s been a dry year, though, and these mountains are burning, covering the land in a fog of smoke. It’s a dense and gloomy environment for bad things to happen, which is certainly good for readers, and it provides an awesome backdrop for these noir happenings. Raymond Mathis has come into some money following a land sale, but his son is a drug addict with a debt. In order to save Ricky’s life, Ray has to pay off the large sum of what Ricky owes. Ray leaves Ricky’s drug dealer with a warning, telling the man that if he ever sells anything to Ricky again, Ray will make him pay. Since this is a noir crime story, you can probably guess that Ray’s words are not well heeded…
Joy explores the opioid epidemic hitting the rural mountain community Mathis has lived in all his life, unfolding this story through Ray’s eyes as an everyman, as well as drug addict Denny (like the restaurant), and DEA Agent Rodriguez. Of the three, I found Ray and Denny to be the most evocatively drawn, and both garnered my sympathies in different ways. I really appreciated Ray’s old-school viewpoints on the changing world and how its affected (or perhaps infected) his small corner of the world, and utterly poisoned his relationships with his son. Joy does a fantastic job in this latter regard, capturing the difficulties of being a father of an addict as emotions and ideals war against one another, cycling through ambivalence, compassion, and anger, and you can’t help but wonder which feeling is going to win out and push Ray the furthest.
We get to know these characters so well that some of Joy’s writing makes for difficult reading, as he’s not one to pull any punches. One scene involving a drug overdose is absolutely unflinching and powerful in its description, and he makes you feel every inch of it. It’s potent, heartbreaking stuff.
When These Mountains Burn is a wholly satisfying work of rural noir and a welcome change of pace from the glitz and glamour of more routinely visited settings, like LA or New York. We get a real sense of how the drug trade has impacted this small community and the people that live there, and as a result it feels far more effective and, for me, relatable than a big-city crime caper (although those certainly have their place, too). David Joy is a welcome addition to my canon of noir authors, and I look forward to revisiting his explorations of Appalachian crime through his prior and subsequent books. Consider me a new fan.