Often fast friends from youth go their separate ways as life moves along but Larry and Silas have lost touch for reasons that are much more complicated. When the two boys were in high school, Larry was suspected in the disappearance and probable murder of an attractive female classmate. Although a body was never found and Larry was never charged with the crime, he has been shunned by the community and has lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since, always a suspect in future crimes and living in sad isolation. Larry continues to run his father’s auto repair shop, depending for business on occasional travelers who pass through the community unaware of his reputation as “Scary Larry”, the suspected murderer. His home and mailbox are often vandalized and he is desperately lonely. Silas, his good friend from their youth, has moved on but finally returns to Chabot, Mississippi as a Sheriff’s deputy but avoids his old friend Larry, in spite of several messages from his former pal.
Everything changes when yet another local girl goes missing and Silas must investigate the crime. Larry, of course, is immediately considered a prime suspect but Silas has his doubts and sets out to solve the mystery – and, in the process, steps back into the unsettled rumors and untidy suspicions of the past. And then, Larry is the victim of a brutal attempt on his life that further complicates the mystery and gives Silas yet another crime to solve.
Poor Larry was always an awkward boy, taunted and ridiculed – even by his father who wished he was more confident and more competent in traditional “manly” pursuits. His only good friend was Silas, the son of their former black nanny who has the social skills that Larry lacks but without the connections of Larry’s father, a respected white businessman in the community – knowledgeable with an easy, friendly manner that once made his garage a popular local gathering place.
The book’s title comes from a rhyme used by young children to remember how to spell “Mississippi” (“s” is the “crooked letter) and the unraveling of the mysteries present and past in this amazing book certainly takes unexpected twists and turns as Silas faces his past along with Larry’s, uncovering more than he bargained for in the process.
Tom Franklin was on the short list for the Edgar Award (the most prestigious award for mystery writers) for this amazing and tautly written murder mystery. I was so captivated by the beautifully written prose and the elegantly compelling story line that I read through this book compulsively over just a few days. “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter” is great writing, highly pleasurable reading and a very hard act to follow!
