Salt River

(4.5 stars) 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 key 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. n Mary Whipple Cripple Creek: A Novel Drive What You Have Left: The Turner Trilogy Eye of the Cricket Black Hornet (Lew Griffin)

Salt River: A Novel This is the third novel in Sallis' new series featuring John Turner. Although I have enjoyed other books by Sallis such as "Lew Griffin" books, I especially enjoyed and recommend this series. I like the setting below Memphis, in the south, and the life in small town. James Sallis is a master of vivid descriptions with a minimum number of words. He builds his characters without the need for pages and page of prose to do this ... and yet you KNOW all of the people, especially John Turner. I especially recommend this book and series, plus the new book that will come out shortly comtaining all three John Turner novels of this series.

I don't think you can read James Sallis and not walk away struck with awe and reverence. While others may major in plot or clever twists and irony, Sallis' triumph is his mastery of the language - his use of simple words effortlessly spun in to passages unlocking emotion and conjuring images that defy the common rural settings and ordinary folk of which he writes. This is the English language at its best - the power of Faulkner told in words that can actually be understood. Or think Cormac McCarthy with punctuation - a less complex, but equally potent rendering of the literature. "Salt Creek" is the third, and one would think the last, in the series of John Turner, the ex-many-things and reluctant fill-in sheriff of a small Tennessee town where he's returned to settle out his last years. As the homilies and allegories and metaphors compete for precious space across Sallis' scant pages, he tells a dark and remorseful tale of lost youth and death that is as relevant to the dying town as it is to its unfortunate but colorful and well-drawn characters. Sallis slides easily in time - memories and dreams blur and blend and are at least as important as Turner's dealing in the here-and-now. But if you're like me, you'll find yourself only casually interested in the events that led the Sheriff's wayward son to crash an apparently stolen car into the City Hall, or unravel the mystery of Turner's friend Eldon Brown, who shows up after a two year absence telling Turner he may or may not have killed someone - as the soaring prose provides more than enough pleasure to pass the too few hours of reading that end too quickly. So if you measure your literary purchases in dollars/word, this may disappoint - try "War and Peace". But if your looking for an extraordinarily efficient lesson in how to disguise poetry as engaging prose, along with a keen insight into a disappearing slice of American culture, you have to read this book - and "Cypress Grove" and "Cripple Creek" that precede it. For fiction as an art form, there is no one writing today more adept than James Sallis - it's a shame he isn't more widely read.

Two years have passed since John Turner sat with his beloved Bal Bjorn on his porch when she was shot and killed. Psychiatrists say time heals all wounds, but John knows otherwise as he still grieves his loss. The former cop has since become sheriff of the dying rural town that lies between Memphis and Soon No More. Turner sits on a bench on economically depressed Main Street discussing with Doc how ugly life is except for the banjo. Suddenly, a speeding car driven by Billy Bates is out of control and crashes into city hall. As Billy is taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital, Turner investigates the return of the troubled son of former sheriff Lonnie Bates. What he finds deeply shakes him to his already troubled soul. The return of that great twenty-first century southern philosopher John Turner (see CYPRESS GROVE and CRIPPLE CREEK) will be fully appreciated by fans of James Sallis. The investigations (the other one involves his musician pal Eldon) is well written, but is used to enhance the deep look at a dying way of life. The writing is fabulous as the depressed area is vividly depicted mostly through Turner's musings on living, music, and dying. Readers who appreciate a strong regional tale that focuses on the human condition will relish SALT RIVER in which the police procedural elements are used to provide a powerful spotlight on the last death kicks of a once thriving era that has turned geriatric. Harriet Klausner

"Salt River" is the third novel by James Sallis in the John Turner series, and it begins two years after his beloved Val was killed at the end of the prior entry, "Cripple Creek." Turner, now in his 50's, has a fascinating background: ex-cop, ex-con, Vietnam was veteran, and former therapist. Now Sheriff in a small town near Memphis, he had been reluctantly persuaded to return to the job after the present sheriff, Lonnie Bates, retired and Turner had "failed to step backward fast enough." One afternoon Lonnie's long-lost son comes roaring down the street in what later appears to be a stolen car which he then drives straight into City Hall. When Turner returns home later that day, his buddy, Eldon, appears, telling John "I think I killed someone." Of course, it is Turner's job to find out exactly what is going on, which turns out to be more difficult than one would at first expect. Mr. Sallis' spare prose is wonderful, and the novel a deeply affecting one. Some of my favorite passages: "I was not only a psychologist of sorts, I was a cop who had seen some of the worst mankind had to offer and an ex-con who had been privy to society's best, gnarled efforts at greatheartedness and manipulation. Altruism gets handed to me, I'm automatically peeling back the label, looking to see what's underneath...So many people come into our lives, become important, then are gone...And I felt all about me the sadness of endings...The world is so very full of words. And yet so much that's important goes forever unsaid...That's pretty much how it goes, for most of us. We don't stub our toes on streets of gold and lead rich lives, we don't tell the people we love how much we love them when it matters, we never quite inhabit the shadows we cast as we cross this world. We just go on." Above all, the book is about "how much a man can lose and how much music he can make with what he has left,' which were the last words spoken to him by Val before she died, and which are Turner's, and the author's, mantra and recurrent theme. There is a hint that the John Turner books may be coming to an end - I certainly hope not.