Sorrow Road (Bell Elkins Series #5)

by Julia Keller

Overview

In Sorrow Road, the latest mystery from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Julia Keller, two stories—one set in the turbulent era of World War II and one in the present day—are woven together to create a piercingly poignant tale of memory and family, of love and murder.

In 1944, three young men from a small town in West Virginia are among the American forces participating in D-Day, changing the fortunes of the war with one bold stroke. How is that moment aboard a Navy ship as it barrels toward the Normandy shore related to the death of an old man in an Appalachian nursing home seventy-two years later?


Bell Elkins, prosecuting attorney in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia, is asked by an old acquaintance to look into the death of her beloved father in an Alzheimer’s care facility. Did he die of natural causes—or was something more sinister to blame? And that’s not the only issue with which Bell is grappling: Her daughter Carla has moved back home. But something’s not right. Carla is desperately hiding a secret.

Once again, past and present, good and evil, and revenge and forgiveness clash in a riveting story set in the shattered landscape of Acker’s Gap, where the skies can seem dark even at high noon, and the mountains lean close to hear the whispered lament of the people trapped in their shadow.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250089595
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/11/2017
Series:	Bell Elkins Series , #5
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	371,245
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Julia Keller spent twelve years as a reporter and editor for the Chicago Tribune, where she won a Pulitzer Prize. A recipient of a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, she was born in West Virginia and lives in Chicago and Ohio. She is the author of the Bell Elkins series (A Killing in the Hills, Bitter River, Summer of the Dead).

Editorial Reviews

Sorrow Road continues the high standards that Keller has established with her series. Sorrow Road, like her other novels, is a story about a community comprised of very personal stories, each as unique as each individual.”—Associated Press

“The setting and the tone will appeal to fans of both Sharyn McCrumb and Julia Spencer-Fleming, and the introspective protagonist and literary quality recommend it to followers of Tana French and Louise Penny. Another outstanding entry in a superb series.”—Booklist (starred review) on Sorrow Road

"A beautifully crafted mystery in which Keller explores love, hate, and poverty in a place of stunning natural beauty."—Kirkus (starred) on Last Ragged Breath

"What particularly distinguishes Julia Keller's series about Bell Elkins, a West Virginia prosecutor, is its sense of social conscience...powerfully affecting."—USA Today on Summer of the Dead

"Keller crafts a cracking whodunnit with many a red herring, but her real accomplishment is the unflinching depiction of rural poverty and the ways the inhabitants of Acker's Gap hold on to their dignity despite few and terrible options."—Oprah.com on Summer of the Dead

From the Publisher

Despite its stock characters, this is storytelling that really sticks to the ribs…thanks to Keller's plotting skills and her devotion to her home place, a land of deep beauty and quiet desperation.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

06/27/2016
At the start of Keller’s lukewarm fifth Bell Elkins novel (after 2015’s Last Ragged Breath), the West Virginia prosecutor gets a glimpse of the road not taken when she meets law school classmate Darlene Strayer for a drink in a rundown bar. Though the women grew up in similar circumstances, Bell, “who had seemed destined for a glittering career in a big city,” has ended up in an obscure small town, and misfit Darlene went on to become a celebrated federal prosecutor. But now Darlene needs Bell’s help. Darlene’s father, Harmon, died the week before, but despite his advanced years, she feels guilt about his passing. In recent months, Harmon was bothered about something he wouldn’t disclose, and his daughter believes it was connected with his death. Darlene’s fears seem more credible to Bell when Darlene ends up the victim of a car crash. Keller writes well, but a soap opera of a subplot involving Bell’s daughter, who has returned home with a secret, distracts from the main narrative. Author tour. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

2016-06-01
A deadly accident in 1938 West Virginia is the impetus for several modern murders.Bell Elkins ditched her ambitious husband and high-stress job to become the prosecutor in Raythune County, where she grew up in unhappy circumstances. Her high-powered law school classmate Darlene Strayer also grew up in Appalachia but then stayed away, returning only to visit her father and finally place him in the Alzheimer's unit of Thornapple Terrace in neighboring Muth County. Although Harmon Strayer was almost 90, Darlene has doubts that he and two other patients died naturally, and she asks Bell to look into their deaths. Bell asks her assistant, Rhonda Lovejoy, who has friends and relatives everywhere, to do some gentle probing. Bell's own life is in disarray. She's considering how to handle her love affair with a much younger man when her daughter Carla suddenly calls to say that she's coming home in the middle of a snowstorm. When Darlene is killed on her way home in the same snowstorm, Bell's suspicions are inflamed. Both Bell and Carla still suffer from traumatic incidents in their pasts that underlie their current problems. Carla's already lined up a job interviewing older members of the area for a library project, and Bell doesn't push her to discuss why she's suddenly come home. Impetuous Carla accidentally gets involved in the investigation, putting herself and others in danger. When a worker at Thornapple Terrace is murdered along with her best friend, Bell suspects another connection, though she doesn't yet know about the fraught relationship between Harmon and his two childhood friends or the secret they've kept for years. Although this isn't the best of Keller's deeply nuanced, beautifully written examinations of life and death in hardscrabble coal country (Last Ragged Breath, 2015, etc.), its exploration of the ravages of Alzheimer's is deeply moving.

Kirkus Reviews