Rating: 5/5
Review:
An excellent book
I thought Sarah Jane was excellent. James Sallis is a very fine
writer and his spare style is quite riveting here.
It’s a hard book
to describe. Narrated by the eponymous Sarah Jane Pullman, we get the
story of how she ends up as a cop in a small town, a job which she
didn’t expect to be in but which she’s very good at. The thing
is, we don’t get quite the full story as the narrative unfolds and
events in Sarah Jane’s past eventually begin to catch up with her –
the faintest shadows at first, which begin to build to something more
substantial. It’s a humane, thoughtful story which I found utterly
gripping as Sallis builds a picture often through the recounting of
small, relatively mundane events which are full of insight and
compassion but where the sense of looming, growing threat is always
present.
It’s beautifully
written as Sallis creates his people and places almost like a
brilliant artist can with a few lines in a charcoal sketch, with just
a few, seemingly simple lines capturing the subject perfectly. It
also has the immense merit of brevity at just over 200 pages; nothing
is wasted and there’s absolutely no padding. I was completely
gripped throughout and I can recommend this very warmly indeed.
(My thanks to
Oldcastle Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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