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heidisreads's review
4.0
Told from the memories and observations of 13 year old Grant O'Grady, this is a murder mystery set in a small North Dakota town at the end of the Great Depression. The characters in this story come to life and kept me up reading way past my bedtime!
Excited to have the author visit our community in a couple of weeks!
Excited to have the author visit our community in a couple of weeks!
cnorbury's review
4.0
Well-written historical fiction capturing a slice of life in a small rural town in North Dakota in the 1930s. Grant O'Grady (the title character) and his baseball-loving buddies get into more trouble than they should but still escape relatively unharmed until the town drunk, Big Joe Thornton, takes a personal dislike to Grant after Grant stands up for Big Joe's son, Little Joe.
Because nearly everyone in town hates Big Joe because of the abuse he heaps on his family and his irresponsible spending (spending most of the family's money on booze), there are no lack of suspects when he ends up dead in the basement of his house.
Davis captures a slice of life that I can identify with, being a baseball-crazed kid when I was 13. (I wanted to pitch for the Minnesota Twins. Grant's idol was Bob Feller. The difference? Grant probably had the talent to reach the major leagues. I did not. :-)
The characters are all believable and unique. The collective personalities of the core group of friends make for more or less a complete human--Grant's talent and compassion, Little Joe's loyalty, Frank's impulsiveness, Orland's artistic and intellectual side. Grant's father, Slider, is the wise compass for Grant. He's the county sheriff and also a pitcher on the townball team. A man of principle who won't let breaking the law get in the way of delivering justice because he's one of the many people who'd willingly kill Big Joe because he's such a vile antagonist.
That said, Big Joe may be a bit of a caricatured bad guy--drunk with a violent streak who is totally selfish and uncaring--but he's fleshed out enough for us to understand that he's truly ill with alcoholism and is beyond saving.
All in all, quite enjoyable and well-crafted. My one nitpick was the overuse of dialect, slang, and foreign accent exaggeration (particularly the German doctor). Took me out of the story too often.
Because nearly everyone in town hates Big Joe because of the abuse he heaps on his family and his irresponsible spending (spending most of the family's money on booze), there are no lack of suspects when he ends up dead in the basement of his house.
Davis captures a slice of life that I can identify with, being a baseball-crazed kid when I was 13. (I wanted to pitch for the Minnesota Twins. Grant's idol was Bob Feller. The difference? Grant probably had the talent to reach the major leagues. I did not. :-)
The characters are all believable and unique. The collective personalities of the core group of friends make for more or less a complete human--Grant's talent and compassion, Little Joe's loyalty, Frank's impulsiveness, Orland's artistic and intellectual side. Grant's father, Slider, is the wise compass for Grant. He's the county sheriff and also a pitcher on the townball team. A man of principle who won't let breaking the law get in the way of delivering justice because he's one of the many people who'd willingly kill Big Joe because he's such a vile antagonist.
That said, Big Joe may be a bit of a caricatured bad guy--drunk with a violent streak who is totally selfish and uncaring--but he's fleshed out enough for us to understand that he's truly ill with alcoholism and is beyond saving.
All in all, quite enjoyable and well-crafted. My one nitpick was the overuse of dialect, slang, and foreign accent exaggeration (particularly the German doctor). Took me out of the story too often.
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