Salt River

Few American writers create more memorable landscapes than James Sallis. His highly praised Lew Griffin novels evoked classic New Orleans and the convoluted inner space of his private detective. More recently – in Cypress Grove and Cripple Creek – he has conjured a small town somewhere near Memphis, where John Turner – ex-policeman, ex-con, war veteran and former therapist – has come to escape his past. But the past proved inescapable; thrust into the role of Deputy Sheriff, Turner finds himself at the centre of his new community, one that, like so many others, is drying up, disappearing before his eyes.

As Salt River begins, two years have passed since Turner’s amour, Val Bjorn, was shot as they sat together on Turner’s porch. Sometimes you just have to see how much music you can make with what you have left, Val had told him, but Turner is not sure how much there is. Then the sheriff’s long-lost son comes ploughing into City Hall in what appears to be a stolen car. And waiting at Turner’s cabin is his good friend, Eldon Brown, Val’s banjo on the back of his motorcycle. ‘They think I killed someone,’ he says. Turner asks: ‘Did you?’ And Eldon responds: ‘I don’t know.’ Haunted by his own ghosts, Turner nonetheless goes in search of a truth he’s not sure he can live with.

• Previous nominee for the CWA Gold Dagger Award
• Increasingly high profile author following the critical success of Drive