Just Jennifer

Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Two men: one suspected of a crime he never committed, one hiding from a crime he never meant to commit. Each wrestling with his realty, each looking over his shoulder, one for the past that haunts him, one for his present that he is afraid will catch up with him, neither being able to look toward the future.

In Man in the Woods, Scott Spencer introduces Paul, a master carpenter with simple basic needs who has lived much of his life on the outskirts of society without the traditional support mechanisms of a family and close friends. He wanders into a relationship with Kate, herself very damaged, a current media darling who has just authored a popular guide to praying; together the two are forging a life that suits themselves and Kate’s young daughter, without facing who they are and what they have done. Paul’s brief respite in a sate part on his way back to Kate sets off a chain of events that Kate tries mightily to stop from unraveling everything she has done, but whose consequences Paul knows deep down inside he must eventually face.

Scott Spencer writes a page turning novel that explores its characters, Kate reacting to her new success in life, trying to forget about, rather than heal from, her previous life, and Paul as the man before he enters the woods, while he is in the woods and the man he is when he leaves the woods and how these changes affect those around him.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a suspenseful literary novel with a richly described rural Mississippi setting, including the values and mores of the early 1970’s and today. He has developed Silas and Larry so well that it will almost be like looking into a mirror. The plot is engrossing, the truth hidden as well as some of the back roads of Larry and Silas’s Mississippi.

Larry Ott was suspected of raping a murdering a girl when he was in high school, a girl whose body has never been found, nor has any evidence of a crime been found. Larry lives in the rural Mississippi that remains suspicious of him to his day and quickly looks to him when another young girl goes missing. Larry was an awkward young boy who struck up an unlikely friendship with Silas, a black boy being raised by a single mother, a relationship Larry’s parents have forbidden him to pursue, but that he conducts in secret. After the first girl disappeared, Silas and his mother left town, Silas returning many years later as a constable, the one who can save Larry and help him break out of his past, or the one who can hold past grudges and allow Larry to continue living his isolated life. Larry and Silas’s friendship ended abruptly and neither has ever had a chance to confront the other with his suspicions or reassurances. Now men, they will be forced to confront each other, and their individual pasts, fears, prejudices and friendship head on, uncovering secrets that they have kept separately and together for so many years that will either heal their relationship or drive them apart forever.