Jesse Donaldson's debut novel The More They Disappear covers a lot of familiar ground: murder, corruption, hillbilly heroin, and the long-buried secrets of a small town. The book is constructed differently from your usual who-done-it. In this case, Donaldson tells us who and how right from the start. We know victim and the perpetrator in the first chapter. It's finding out the why that makes this such a good read. And the surprise twist at the end isn’t bad either.
When the sheriff of a small town in Kentucky is killed by a teenage drug addict, the hapless chief deputy Harlan Dupee is thrust into the spotlight. Harlan isn’t your typical hero. He’s unassuming and maybe even a bit bumbling. He isn’t ambitious, but when the opportunity arises to solve the case and run for Sheriff himself, Harlan rises to the challenge. I'll be waiting to see if Jesse Donaldson makes this into a series.
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