Rhiannon

A neo-western crime drama that gives off Breaking Bad and Taylor Sheridan vibes, this reads more like a screenplay than a novel – it’s written in these spare, short little vignettes and jump cuts that are a brief, uneasy glance into a family going inextricably off the rails as the secrets of the past catch up with them, blowing up their comfortable lives.

There were some weirdly jarring plot inconsistencies and small details that didn’t make much sense that I found very distracting and troublesome, like this:

“…𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎. 𝑰𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒍.”

And then moments later

“𝑨 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒑 𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒂 𝒈𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆.”

Or later on:

“𝐀𝐛𝐞𝐥 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐉𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐳, 𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐲”

(my emphasis) Um, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵?

That kind of thing.

And I have to say that the basic underlying ‘mystery’ was kind of obvious to me right from the jump. I stuck around because Cosco does an amazing job of painting a scene and I really did enjoy the quiet menace of the book and was curious to see how it would all play out. All of the characters are morally ambiguous, but I think the female characters were given short shrift and were only there to serve as a sexual foil for the men.

I think it would make an excellent movie, more so than the actual book.

𝙈𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 Booksirens 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙘𝙤𝙥𝙮. 𝙄 𝙖𝙢 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙮; 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙮 𝙤𝙬𝙣.