Sarah Jane

A spare, sparkling tour de force about one woman’s journey to becoming a cop, by master of noir James Sallis, author of Drive.

A spare, sparkling tour de force about one woman’s journey to becoming a cop.

Sarah Jane Pullman is a good cop with a complicated past. From her small-town chicken-farming roots through her runaway adolescence, court-ordered Army stint, ill-advised marriage and years slinging scrambled eggs over greasy spoon griddles, Sarah Jane unfolds her life story, a parable about memory, atonement, and finding shape in chaos. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she finds herself named the de facto sheriff of a rural town, investigating the mysterious disappearance of her predecessor – and the even more mysterious realities of the life he was hiding from his own colleagues and closest friends.

In the tradition of James Crumley’s The Last Good Kiss and Ivy Pochoda’s Wonder Valley, this kaleidoscopic character study sparkles in every dark and bright detail – a virtuoso work by a master of both the noir and the tender aspects of human nature.