It's my turn on the BlogTour This Wild, Wild Country by Inga Vesper - the captivating new mystery from the author of The Long, Long Afternoon.
Inga Vesper is a journalist and editor. She moved to the UK from Germany to work as a carer, before the urge to write and explore brought her to journalism. As a reporter, she covered the coroner's court and was able to observe how family, neighbours and police react to a suspicious death. Inga has worked in Syria and Tanzania, but now lives in Glasgow, because there's no better way to find a good story than eavesdropping on the chatter in a Scottish cafe on a rainy day. Follow @wekesperos on Twitter,
About the book
Three women. An isolated town. A decades-old mystery. - They hate me down there, in Boldville. I can read it in their eyes, smell it on their noxious breaths. That dreaded little town hates everything about me: not just my personality and form, the clothes I wear, but the way I think. The things that I know.
1933. Cornelia Stover is headstrong and business-minded - not the kind of woman the men of Boldville, New Mexico, expect her to be. Then she stumbles upon a secret hidden out in the hills . . .
1970. Decades later, Joanna Riley, a former cop, packs up her car in the middle of the night and drives west, fleeing an abusive marriage and a life she can no longer bear. Eventually, she runs out of gas and finds herself in Boldville, a sleepy desert town in the foothills of the Gila Mountains.
Joanna was looking for somewhere to retreat, to hide, but something is off about this place. In a commune on the outskirts a young man has been found dead and Joanna knows a cover up when she sees it. Soon, she and Glitter, a young, disaffected hippie, find themselves caught up in a dark mystery that goes to the very heart of Boldville, where for too long people have kept their eyes shut and turned their heads away. A mystery that leads them all the way back to the unexplained disappearance of Glitter's grandmother Cornelia forty years before . . .
Review
For me the veins of gold in this story - pun totally intended - are the moments in history that have been retold through the lens of those who write history. Predominantly white men, who speak of free love, rebellion, lack of boundaries and peace. What would those historical movements look like if told through the lens of women, but stripped down to the bare facts without the flowy, flowery, drug-fuelled unicorn fluff of that era.
How many people have shoved their own MeToo moments into a box and labelled it all part of the hippie culture and free love movement. Then swallowed those moments and the trauma eventually surfaces when the confines of those times no longer have any validity. Often things are merely in vogue or the way the voice of the people rises above the norms of society with loud murmurs of discontent.
It's interesting how those murmurs and attempts at changing the status quo are recalled. A certain element of irresponsibility and lack of clarity, a minor blip of youth experimentation. The reality hidden behind the exterior of talk of peace and harmony.
In a way all of the main characters share their own moments in history where they are stereotyped, abused and oppressed, which is where their paths meet. It's an interesting second book from this author, and has its place when you consider the first book. A mystery hidden in a forest full of issues, emotional baggage, and a story of women. I wonder where the story and the author will lead us next.
Buy This Wild, Wild Country at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher : Bonnier Zaffre - Manilla Press pub date 4 Aug. 2022. Buy at Amazon com.
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