The Code of the Hills: An Ozarks Mystery
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Ozarks Mysteries Series by Nancy Allen
Page 1 of 1 Start Over Page 1 of 1. Kindle Cloud Reader Read instantly in your browser. Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. A Killing at the Creek: The Wages of Sin: A Wolf in the Woods: A gripping psychological thriller from the author of The Good Mother.
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An absolutely gripping serial killer thriller Detective Lucy Harwin crime thriller series Book 1. She tried over thirty jury trials, and is now a law instructor at Missouri State University. Product details File Size: Witness Impulse April 15, Publication Date: April 15, Sold by: Share your thoughts with other customers.
Write a customer review. See all customer images. Read reviews that mention code of the hills nancy allen main character elsie arnold look forward next book subject matter looking forward story line twists and turns well written page turner forward to reading really enjoyed courtroom drama good read fast paced assistant prosecutor child abuse forward to the next.
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The Code of the Hills
Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Mass Market Paperback Verified Purchase. It is set in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri, in Barton, the seat of McCown County, for which Elsie works as a prosecuting attorney. A key piece of evidence gets incinerated. The scene where their itinerant pastor sets them straight in a sermon was a hoot, at least to this member of the clergy. If Elsie loses the case, she loses her job. What I liked about the novel is that it tells a story that feels like the Ozarks.
This novel has a ring of truth to it. I enjoyed The Code of the Hills. It kept me turning pages, which is my number-one criteria for mystery novels.
So, I look forward to reading the next three novels in the series. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. At first, I thought this book was going to be a "Winter's Bone" wanna be. Writing style, intent and plot are completely different. The mother of the victims, Donita Taney, is a complex character. She loves her children, but fails to protect them. She is a victim of poverty and has experienced abuse, which may explain her behavior.
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In the narrative, Elsie attracts negative attention from a religious group that rallies for the defendant for a variety of reasons, from family loyalty to anti-government sentiment and misogynistic patriarchal views. It creates another complication for her as she seeks to bring justice for the victims. Does setting play a major role in the story? Without giving the game away, can you tell us something about the arc that Elsie goes through in the novel?
While she sees her case through to the finish, she battles very real evidentiary problems that lawyers face with witnesses and physical evidence. But she must also contend with a combative, competitive boss, community protests, and her own personal weaknesses, including but not limited to her rotten taste in men.
And of course, the ultimate legal storyteller is Harper Lee—but I do not have the temerity to seek a comparison to her, honest to god.
Ozarks Mysteries Series
What, if any, is the role for fiction in changing our attitudes to justice and the legal system? Fiction can help demystify the legal system, by letting the reader understand how it works. It is a human machine, with all the virtues and failings of the people who run the system.
It should work effectively for people of every demographical level. The legal system performs differently for the underclass than it does for the rich. The first draft of the manuscript took six months. Four years of revision followed. If we are to believe rural Missouri is so full of degenerates, we ought at least to say the same about Alabama, Maine, Saskatchewan and, Lord knows, the Hamptons.
Those Trump voters are, to be sure, rather harder to portray.
The suspense Allen builds through pages never lets up—except at the end of the novel, when one of the crazed evangelicals gets Elsie alone and threatens her with, well, God knows. Elsie stabs him in the eye with a sharp pencil, and the world probably divides here, between those who cheer for this sort of melodrama and those who think the scene contrived and silly.
It undercuts and devalues the preceding narrative. That narrative, with its assured portrait of life in the courtroom, legal maneuvers, and negotiations among participants, is awfully well-done. You are commenting using your WordPress.