do NOT read this book.................................. - Rated 
........do not read this book before you have read James Sallis' previous novels about Turner. These are CYPRESS GROVE and CRIPPLE CREEK. Better still, buy them all and settle down to read classic crime fiction. I will not go into too much detail because I do not consider myself qualified to dictate my taste in fiction to others.....hey,you may hate Sallis. Suffice to say that he transports me to a place other than my daily experiences allow,while at the same time reminding me of the things that I value.
Please also consider reading Sallis' six Lew Griffin novels......start with 'The Long Legged Fly' (1992) and read them in sequence from there.....
especially if you have experience of the city of New Orleans.....or not.
Sallis is not for everyone, but for those who are introduced to his work from this review and are as captivated as I have been......they have many hours of reading pleasure ahead.
"Peace is only the time it takes to reload." - Rated 
James Sallis, who can convey as much information in one sentence as most authors convey in a paragraph, concludes his John Turner trilogy with this dark, contemplative novel about life's unfinished stories. Turner's own life is a story in the making. A war veteran and ex-con who spent nineteen months in prison, where he studied to become a psychological counselor, Turner eventually worked with the Memphis Police Department before escaping to the small town of Cripple Creek to escape the violence. Persuaded to step in as temporary sheriff, he discovers that violent death makes its way even to small towns, the subject of _Cripple Creek_, the previous novel in the trilogy.
At the outset of Salt River, more than two years later, Turner has seen and done it all, buffeted by fate and his own bad choices. He has remained in Cripple Creek, but his life is dark, sad, and full of the knowledge that unexpected horrors can cripple, if not kill, even the most flickering of one's personal hopes. Though this short novel could be considered a noir mystery, filled with violence, misery, and the inhumane behaviors with which men must deal in their everyday lives, the focus here is primarily on Turner and his "self-narrative."
In many ways a mystery man who refuses wear his heart or his personal history on his sleeve, Turner works on three pressing law enforcement issues here while reminiscing about his life and contemplating his future. Billy Bates, the renegade son of the sheriff, crashes a car into City Hall and is seriously injured. The circumstances under which he acquired the car are a pressing issue. Isaiah Stillman, who has founded a commune in the hills, learns that his friend Merle has been murdered on his way to see Isaiah. Merle has been carrying an unusual package. And Milly Bates, wife of the sheriff's son Billy, is mysteriously kidnapped and may be dead.
Life, Turner shows us, is messy, and people's lives are always unfinished stories. People do what they can to muddle through, with little expectation that their efforts will bear fruit. "There are mountain men or cowboys inside us all, Henry David Thoreau and Clint Eastwood riding double in our bloodstreams and our dreams," Turner observes. Ultimately, "we don't stub our toes on streets of gold...we don't tell people we love how much we love them when it matters, we never quite inhabit the shadows we cast as we cross this world." Spare with details and minimalist in style, this intelligent and thoughtful novel of ideas and identity further enhances Sallis's reputation as one of the best contemporary noir writers out there. Mary Whipple
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