Friday 23 April 2021

SCOTT GRAND - THE GIRL WITH THE STONE HEART (2020)

 


Synopsis/blurb .....

Winter has set in a small town on the California coast and a fishing vessel has been lost amongst the gray waves. Grace runs the bowling alley and ghosts through his own life. He lives in the layer of fat between the underbelly and society. He completes tasks given to him by the people who run the town and is grounded only by his aging grandmother and her weekly bingo trips.

Grace is charged with issuing payments to the fishermen’s widows. He pulls on his funeral suit and borrows his grandmother’s New Yorker. When Grace is unable to find one woman, he uncovers something that threatens the oligarchy’s reign and his way of life.

Another fast-paced one sitting read from publisher All Due Respect and a new voice for me to enjoy in Scott Grand. 

Small town secrets, an errand boy and some disruption to the normally smooth running of events. Ergo - blowback, fallout, mistrust and a reckoning followed by a resettling into familiar patterns. Everything changes, everything stays the same.

I enjoyed meeting Grace, the main protagonist. I liked his interactions with his grandmother and the other people in his life. I enjoyed seeing him unleashed and in action. I liked the setting and the tale. Decent writing, plenty of incident. Greed and money feature prominently. The outcome satisfied me. What else do I want from my reading?    

Some of author Scott Grand's shorter works sit on the TBR pile - Sport and Only Child. I'm looking forward to them.

4 from 5

Read - March, 2021
Published - 2020
Page count  - 104
Source - owned copy
Format - paperback

4 comments:

  1. There's nothing like a small town for atmosphere, is there, Col? All sorts of things, whether they're buried secrets or something else, can go on in a place like that. Grace sounds like an interesting character, too, placed at an interesting spot between the legitimate forces in town and its underbelly. I'm not surprised you liked this one, and Grand sounds like an author to watch.

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    1. Margot, I love those small town reads for all the reasons you mention.

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  2. Thanks, Col. Sport is killer. Read that many years before Scott sent me this one.

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    1. Chris cheers. I hope to get to that one soon.

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