The Reluctant Sheriff: A Mick Hardin Novel

Offutt melds sharp prose and satisfying grit in his fourth thriller featuring former Army investigator Mick Hardin (after Code of the Hills). Hardin came out of retirement to serve as the sheriff of Eldridge County, Ky., after his sister, Linda, was injured in the line of duty. Recently, the situation has left him feeling that “his life had reached its nadir at age forty—a job he didn’t want, a car he didn’t own, living in his dead mother’s house, divorced, adrift, and befuddled.” His position grows more uncomfortable when bar owner Skeeter Martin is fatally shot, and Zack Jones, the new husband of Hardin’s ex-wife, Peggy, is charged with the crime. Peggy insists that Jones is innocent and beseeches Hardin to exonerate him, but Hardin isn’t completely convinced by her pleas. When two more seemingly unrelated murders rock Eldridge County, however, the sheriff starts to suspect that Peggy might be right. Offutt’s sentences are a cut above standard-issue crime fiction (“Only nature itself was consistent—relentless, beautiful, benevolent, and cruel,” Hardin muses), and he continues to add layers to this series’ rich rural setting without skimping on pace or plot. The result is an exemplary Southern noir. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi, Inc. (Mar.)