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WORK TITLE: The Homeplace
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.kevinwolfstoryteller.com/
CITY: Littleton
STATE: CO
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2016032651
Descriptive conventions:
rda
LC classification: PS3623.O546
Personal name heading:
Wolf, Kevin, 1951-
Birth date: 1951-12-14
Found in: The homeplace, 2016: CIP t.p. (Kevin Wolf) data view
("Kevin Wolf is a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction
Writers and Crested Butte Writers. He blogs with other
authors at Writers on the Brink and hones his work at
regular meetings of the Southwest Plaza Critique group.
He lives in Colorado")
e-Mail 2016-06-16 fr. C. Lynch, Minotaur Books: (Kevin
Wolf; "The author's birth date is 12/14/51")
================================================================================
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Born December 14, 1951; married.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
AVOCATIONS:Fly-fishing, old Winchesters, and 1950s Western movies.
MEMBER:Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Crested Butte Writers.
AWARDS:Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Contest, 2014, and Tony Hillerman Prize for best debut mystery set in the Southwest, 2015, both for The Homeplace.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Kevin Wolf is a writer who lives in Littleton, Colorado. He is the great-grandson of Colorado homesteaders. Fittingly, he enjoys fly-fishing, old Winchesters, and 1950s Western movies. In 2015, he published the novel The Homeplace, which won the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Contest and the Tony Hillerman Writers Contest—honoring the best debut mystery set in the Southwest.
In The Homeplace, Chase Ford is the first Ford in four generations to leave Comanche County, Colorado. For Chase, a basketball star at his high school, leaving was his escape from all the bad things in his life and a chance to discover life outside Comanche County by becoming a pro basketball player. But when his career—along with his life—begins to fall apart, Chase returns home. Returning home is no refuge from his life in shambles, as he becomes embroiled in a murder case. A high school basketball star, much like Chase himself, is found murdered. When a second death is discovered, the police begin to look at Chase, in that he had connections to the second victim.
Reviews of The Homeplace were positive. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote: “Vibrant prose, clever clues, and a keen sense of place carry readers through to a satisfying if convenient conclusion.” Reviewer Don Crinklaw, in Booklist, observed: “Careful reading of clues leads to the unmasking of the killer, and confirms the observation that we really don’t get over what happens to us in high school.” In her review in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Jennifer Levin quotes Wolf describing how he formed Chase, his male protagonist: “I wanted a stranger to come back to town.” He continued: “He had to have money that he’s been wise with, so he’s not tied down, and then I heaped on the family background and his doubts about returning. He doesn’t know if people think of him as a high school hero or as a failure.” In the same article, Wolf talked about the town Chase comes back to: “I think everybody has an image of what a small town is, but maybe small towns aren’t as innocent as we want to believe they are. Eastern Colorado is the part of the state people drive through or fly over so they can get to Denver and go skiing or go on vacation in the mountains. It’s kind of an overlooked place.”
A reviewer on the Real Book Spy Web site commented: “The Homeplace is an intriguing debut from Kevin Wolf. While the plot is good, the story is brought down by bad dialogue and underdeveloped characters. But if country homicide is what you’re looking for, well, at the very least, Wolf offers a strong original story that flirts with being really good!” Sharon Messing, writing on Reviewingtheevidence.com, remarked: “The reader may have never been to a remote prairie town, seen a bison, met a hermit, been caught in a wildfire … but after reading The Homeplace, that same reader will feel as if all of those experiences are a part of his or her own history. This is an amazingly well realized depiction of a small Western town, and the book deserves the Tony Hillerman Prize that it recently won.” New York Journal of Books reviewer Mark Stevens wrote: “The Homeplace is billed as a mystery—dead body in the first few pages, etcetera. Who done it? But with its weight and dry-eyed character studies, The Homeplace could easily be read as straight novel.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, August 1, 2016, Don Crinklaw, review of The Homeplace, p. 33.
Publishers Weekly, July 18, 2016, review of The Homeplace, p. 188.
ONLINE
Kevin Wolf Home Page, http://www.kevinwolfstoryteller.com (May 3, 2017).
New York Journal of Books Online, http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com (May 3, 2017), Mark Stevens, review of The Homeplace.
Real Book Spy, https://therealbookspy.com (August 23, 2016), review of The Homeplace.
Reviewingtheevidence.com, http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com (May 3, 2017), Sharon Messing, review of The Homeplace.
RT Book Reviews, https://www.rtbookreviews.com (April 9, 2017), review of The Homeplace.
Sante Fe New Mexican, http://www.santafenewmexican.com/ (September 16, 2016), Jennifer Levin, review of The Homeplace.
Kevin Wolf is a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Crested Butte Writers. The great-grandson of Colorado homesteaders, he enjoys fly-fishing, old Winchesters, and 1950s Western movies. He is the author of The Homeplace and lives in Littleton, Colorado, with his wife and two beagles.
Kevin Wolf is a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Crested Butte Writers. The great-grandson of Colorado homesteaders, he enjoys fly fishing, old Winchesters and 1950s Western movies. He lives in Littleton, Colorado, with his wife and two beagles.
Kevin Wolf’s novel The Homeplace, winner of the 2015 Tony Hillerman Prize for best debut mystery set in the Southwest, was released September 6. The contest is named after New Mexico’s best-known mystery author.
Awards
THE HOMEPLACE (Suspense/Mystery)
2015 Tony Hillerman Writers Contest winner- Honoring Debut Mystery set in the Southwest
2014 First Place – Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Contest
BROKE HEART (Paranormal Western)
2009 First Place, Sci-Fi/Fantasy: The Sandy; Crested Butte (CO) Writers
2009 First Place, Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Pacific Northwest Writers Literary Contest
2009 First Place, Speculative Fiction: Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Contest
2009 Third Place, Sci-Fi/Fantasy: SouthWest Writers (NM)
THE BOOTHEEL (Western)
2010 Finalist, Mainstream: Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Contest
2010 Finalist, Historical Non-Fiction: SouthWest Writers
A TOWN CALLED VENGEANCE (Paranormal Western, sequel to BROKE HEART)
2011 Second Place, Sci-Fi/Fantasy: SouthWest Writers
2011 Third Place, Sci-Fi/Fantasy: The Sandy; Crested Butte Writers
2011 Finalist, Speculative Fiction: Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Contest
“I’m Listening” — Marmot, Indian Peaks Wilderness Area
TRAILRIDGE (Action/Adventure)
2011 Second Place, Thriller/Suspense/Mystery: The Sandy; Crested Butte Writers
2011 Finalist, Action/Thriller: Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Contest
QUOTED: Careful reading of clues leads to the unmasking of the killer, and confirms the observation that we really don't get over what happens to us in high school.
The Homeplace
Don Crinklaw
112.22 (Aug. 1, 2016): p33.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
The Homeplace. By Kevin Wolf. Sept. 2016. 272p. Minotaur, $24.99 (9781250103161); e book, $11.99 (9781250103178).
Chase Ford, all six foot seven of him, was a high-school basketball star who won the games, slew the girls, and went on to the bigtime, where things turned sour pronto. Knee injury, pills, divorce. Now he's back home in tiny Brandon, Colorado, dealing with the old crowd and something he hadn't intended. Three murders, all the victims connected to him one way or another: his old coach, the new basketball star, then Chase's half-sister. Author Wolf manages to mix a trip down memory lane with a lovely, old-fashioned whodunit. There's Chase's old pal Marty, now a lawman and--perhaps--an innocent bystander in this new mess. And Birdie, the overweight policewoman trying to hide her smoldering love for Chase. The cafe owner, Mercy, is similarly smitten. The obnoxious Kendall, Chase's bitter rival in the old days and now the pompous county sheriff, is certain Chase is up to something. Careful reading of clues leads to the unmasking of the killer, and confirms the observation that we really don't get over what happens to us in high school.--Don Crinklaw
Crinklaw, Don
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Crinklaw, Don. "The Homeplace." Booklist, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 33. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460761673&it=r&asid=250133fa6220bee5245acf7a3203a4e6. Accessed 9 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460761673
QUOTED: vibrant prose, clever.clues, and a keen sense of place carry readers through to a satisfying if convenient conclusion.
The Homeplace
263.29 (July 18, 2016): p188.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Homeplace
Kevin Wolf. Minotaur, $24.99 (272p) ISBN 978-1-250-10316-1
Wolf's captivating if flawed debut won the 2015 Hillerman prize. Hometown hero Chase Ford returns to Brandon, Colo., to hunt some deer and ponder his future. Sixteen years earlier, Chase left Brandon a rising basketball star, but then a knee injury cut short his NBA career and earned him a prescription drug habit, which in turn destroyed his marriage. He's hoping for a quiet visit, but on his arrival, someone murders high school basketball star Jimmy Riley. Shortly thereafter, Chase's former coach is found dead and two other acquaintances go missing. Chase and two of his childhood friends, Deputy Marty Storm and game warden Birdie Hawkins, must catch the person terrorizing Brandon before Chase's old rival, Sheriff Lincoln Kendall, can pin the crimes on him. Wolf spills too much ink on a tangential subplot, and the killer's motivation is unearned, but vibrant prose, clever.clues, and a keen sense of place carry readers through to a satisfying if convenient conclusion. Agent: Gina Panettieri, Talcott Notch Literary. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Homeplace." Publishers Weekly, 18 July 2016, p. 188. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA459287514&it=r&asid=dc275d288d60fdbf7b2b062a5c818f19. Accessed 9 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A459287514
QUOTED: I wanted a stranger to come back to town,” Wolf said of building his male protagonist. “He had to have money that he’s been wise with, so he’s not tied down, and then I heaped on the family background and his doubts about returning. He doesn’t know if people think of him as a high school hero or as a failure.
No place like home: Author Kevin Wolf
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Kevin Wolf; photo Kelly Weaver
details
▼ Kevin Wolf reads from The Homeplace: A Mystery
▼ 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22
▼ Collected Works Bookstore, 202 Galisteo St., 505-988-4226
The Homeplace is a mystery novel that contains elements of a Western. The land, the weather, hunting, and the town of Brandon operate almost like characters in the story.
Posted: Friday, September 16, 2016 5:00 am
Jennifer Levin
In 1992, Chase Ford was a handsome and popular high school basketball star in the tiny town of Brandon, Colorado, dating Mercy Saylor, the prettiest girl in Comanche County. They both left town for more than 20 years — Mercy to a marriage that deteriorated over time, and Chase to a professional basketball career that ultimately left him injured and heartbroken — but now they’ve returned, however reluctantly, to face their pasts in The Homeplace: A Mystery (Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press), by Kevin Wolf. As Chase and Mercy reconnect with each other and their old friends Marty and Birdie, there is a sudden rash of murders in town, and Chase’s former basketball-court nemesis, Lincoln Kendall — now Sheriff Kendall — is in charge of the investigation. Wolf, winner of the 2016 Tony Hillerman Prize, reads from his novel on Thursday, Sept. 22, at Collected Works Bookstore.
“I wanted a stranger to come back to town,” Wolf said of building his male protagonist. “He had to have money that he’s been wise with, so he’s not tied down, and then I heaped on the family background and his doubts about returning. He doesn’t know if people think of him as a high school hero or as a failure.”
The Homeplace is a mystery novel that contains elements of a Western. The land, the weather, hunting, and the town of Brandon operate almost like characters in the story, and unlike many genre mysteries, the novel has no would-be amateur detective trying to solve the murders. Chase turns out to have connections to the victims, so Kendall thinks he’s involved. Wolf toys with several small-town stereotypes in The Homeplace, such as the idea that everyone knows everyone else’s business, and he infuses Brandon with a dark side.
“I think everybody has an image of what a small town is, but maybe small towns aren’t as innocent as we want to believe they are. Eastern Colorado is the part of the state people drive through or fly over so they can get to Denver and go skiing or go on vacation in the mountains. It’s kind of an overlooked place,” Wolf said. “My great-grandparents were homesteaders in Kit Carson, Colorado, and I still have family and connections in that area. I go there every fall during hunting season, and I’ve seen how the town has changed over time. There were three gas stations, and now there’s just one with a credit-card machine and no attendant. There were four restaurants, and now there’s just one. You have an assisted living facility for the aging population that has stayed close to their farms, and there’s a transient population that comes and goes for jobs with the oil and gas company. I tried to get some of that in the story — to show the boarded-up buildings.”
Mercy has come home to run the family diner — her mother has gone into elder care. Serving ham and eggs to farmers and ranchers is not the life she envisioned for herself, and she sees Chase’s homecoming as an opportunity to rekindle an old flame. She pines for him, making sure she always looks her best when she thinks she’ll see him — or when she thinks Kendall will be around. The married Kendall, who considers himself something of a Casanova, is open to the amorous advances of pretty women. Chase, still reeling from his own divorce, intends to reckon with his family’s land and his childhood home, which has been sitting undisturbed since his father’s death. (Big Paul was a brute Chase hated so much that he didn’t come back to Brandon for his funeral.)
High school friend Marty is a deputy working under Sheriff Kendall. Chase’s arrival, in combination with the murders, inspires the teenage daredevil in him. Marty and Chase have a shared catchphrase for when they know they are doing something stupid but brave — “going Eastwood” — that gets deployed at a few key moments in the story. Birdie Hawkins, Chase’s dowdy female best friend, is a game warden who knows the prairie like the back of her hand. Though she has hated Kendall for most of her life, she winds up having to take orders from him when he sends her to hunt down Ray-Ray Jackson, an anti-establishment survivalist armed with a big gun. Wolf modeled Ray-Ray after a man he met when he was on a hunting trip.
“Ray-Ray was born about 150 years too late. He would have been a mountain man or a buffalo hunter or a cattle-driving cowboy, happy to take care of whatever task he had in front of him. He’s out of place in this land with rules and laws. The man I met had a beard and ragged clothes, and he was driving this old pickup truck. One of the first things he said to me was ‘I live in a teepee.’ He had a piece of land that he farmed, and he did odd jobs. I added the survivalist stuff to the book.”
The Homeplace is Wolf’s first published novel. He has made his livelihood in the sale of manufactured steel products, including school lockers; he visits distributors throughout the Rocky Mountain region, including Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and parts of Texas. He started writing seriously in 2003, though once he started working on a manuscript, he realized he didn’t have a firm foundation in the elements of story. He threw himself into his new endeavor — taking classes, joining the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, attending conferences, getting involved with critique groups, and entering regional writing contests. He signed with an agent in 2010. He is considering writing a second novel about Chase and Birdie, and he has completed another mystery set in the Colorado mountains. He recently signed a two-book deal with a small press for a pair of stories set in a Colorado mining town in the 1880s. “They are traditional-voiced Westerns, with the stranger who arrives in town — a disgraced newspaper reporter, down on his luck. The local paper gives him a tryout, and the first thing they have him write about is a murder that’s happened in this little town. There’s some paranormal stuff, some bump-in-the-night stuff,” Wolf continued, extending the description far afield of a traditional Western. “Instead of ending with gunfight at high noon, it takes place at midnight, and the six-shooter is loaded with silver bullets.” ◀
A Book Spy Review: ‘The Homeplace’ By Kevin Wolf
51ERX59ifzL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgWhen a former golden boy turned retired professional athlete takes a trip back to his hometown of Comanche County, Colorado, he soon finds that nothing much has changed, except that there’s a murderer on the loose.
Chase Ford was the best basketball player to ever don the Brandon Buffalos’ jersey. After earning a full-ride scholarship to leave the small town and attend college, Chase went on to play pro ball in the NBA.
A knee injury ended his playing career prematurely, while an addiction to pills ended his marriage. With an offer to become a sports broadcaster on the table, Chase returns home for a week of hunting, where he plans to decide his future from deep within the sagebrush covering the Colorado shrublands.
With Chase back in town, the locals are buzzing about finally having their two best high school basketball players around at the same time. Jimmie Riley is the new phenom and best ballhandler and shooter since Chase’s glory days. The town couldn’t be happier.
Marty, a deputy with the local sheriff’s department, is especially happy to see Chase. The two were best pals in high school and seem to pick right up where things left off all those years ago. Rounding out their group of friends from way back when is Birdie, the girl that always had a crush on Chae, who is now the local game warden.
Chase’s quiet weekend home is soon overshadowed by the murder of Jimmie Riley. It was Birdie who found the body before radioing Sheriff Lincoln Kendal, a no-nonsense law enforcement officer who, like everyone else, grew up in Comanche County.
Chase and Kendal were known adversaries in high school, and the two still don’t particularly like each other. Kendal still holds a grudge from the last time he saw Chase, when the star ball player punched him in the face.
Initially, Kendal doesn’t want Chase anywhere near the crime scene and as far away from him as possible. But when the Buffalos’ longtime basketball coach is also found murdered, Chase becomes suspect number one.
Birdie finds evidence suggesting that someone other than Chase is responsible for the killings, but to clear his name completely they must all work together to find out who the real murderer is.
As the investigation gets underway, Chase’s backstory unfolds, revealing a hard and troubled upbringing. Even now, his life is full of loose ends and conflict from his childhood. To make sense of the present and clear his name to Sheriff Kendal, Chase Ford must revisit his past, both literally and figuratively, before it’s too late.
Coming in at under three hundred pages, I wish the author would have spent more time on his characters, giving the reader a reason to care about and connect with them. Instead, the story lacks an emotional punch that could have made it a lot better.
The Homeplace is an intriguing debut from Kevin Wolf. While the plot is good, the story is brought down by bad dialogue and underdeveloped characters. But if country homicide is what you’re looking for, well, at the very least, Wolf offers a strong original story that flirts with being really good!
The Homeplace: A Mystery
Image of The Homeplace: A Mystery
Author(s):
Kevin Wolf
Release Date:
September 5, 2016
Publisher/Imprint:
Minotaur Books
Pages:
272
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
Mark Stevens
"What’s hard to believe is that The Homeplace is the work of a previously unpublished writer . . . "
The Homeplace won the Tony Hillerman Prize in the fall of 2015. The prize goes to an unpublished writer of a mystery that captures the southwest flavor of Hillerman’s work.
It’s easy to see why The Homeplace won. Set out on the plains of eastern Colorado, the landscape in The Homplace points more Midwest than Southwest, but no matter. Similar to Hillerman’s, the prose here is clear-eyed and non-flashy. The characters are vivid. And the mystery is a grabber, with an everyman undertow.
What’s hard to believe is that The Homeplace is the work of a previously unpublished writer; Kevin Wolf turns 65 in December. Let’s hope this first release leads to digging through any stories squirreled away in a desk drawer or gathering dust on a shelf.
The Homeplace revolves around Chase Ford. He’s coming home to Comanche County, where there’s “forty miles of dirt for every mile of blacktop.” He’s a former basketball star, and he’s also the first of four generations of Ford men to put Comanche County in the rearview mirror. At least, that is, until now.
Ford’s point of view drives the story, but Wolf gives us a complete small-town ensemble. There’s Birdie Hawkins, a game warden for the Department of Wildlife. There’s Mercy Saylor, who works in the café in Brandon; and deputy sheriff Paco Martinez. There’s also Ray-Ray Jackson, who lives on the edges of society. Ray-Ray likes fresh jalapeno with his deer heart when he’s eating off his illegal kills out in the brush.
The sky is big and the wind blows, but life in the small town has a trapped, closed-in feeling. Everybody knows a bit too much about each other. Each of the characters has issues, whether it’s bosses, mothers, or society in general. The Homeplace does not lend itself to neat character summaries. Complexities abound. And while Chase is the engine here, Birdie and Ray-Ray in particular make for a memorable supporting cast. Wolf layers all his characters; no single-notes allowed.
Wolf swoops smoothly from cool omniscience to close inside his character’s heads, as when Chase and Mercy reconnect in the café for the first time since he disappeared over the horizon. “Quiet slipped into the room and took the empty chair at their table. Pans and pots clanged in the kitchen. Dishes loaded with eggs and bacon slid over the front counter, and the cash register drawer opened and shut. They both stared out the window, content in that minute to say nothing.”
On the day Chase returns, Jimmy Riley’s body is found near four dead buffalo. Jimmy is stark naked, and there’s a bullet hole in his head. Jimmy reminds Chase of himself at that same age—including the fact that Jimmy had been seeing Chase’s half-sister, a young woman he never knew.
Chase has his ghosts and troubles he’s dragging with him. There are harsh memories from his youth. One of the worst involves his father. There are things he could have done differently to help. But he left. And became a big star. Everyone in America knows Chase’s name due to one dramatic moment on the basketball court, when Chase played for the Lakers. But not everything was or is what it seems. Everywhere he looks around him; and at the reflection of his own decisions and mistakes along the way, Chase sees many instances when reputation doesn’t match cold reality—especially his own.
The Homeplace is billed as a mystery—dead body in the first few pages, etcetera. Who done it? But with its weight and dry-eyed character studies, The Homeplace could easily be read as straight novel. As Chase pursues the truth—and he’s not alone—he’s tempted one more time to follow old patterns and familiar temptations. He longs for the “simple times of long before” but realizes, this time, that he has to do what’s right.
“I try to make my books reflect humanity as I see it,” said Tony Hillerman of his writing. And that might be the most Hillerman-like quality of The Homeplace: its utter and convincing sense of humanity.
THE HOMEPLACE
by Kevin Wolf
Minotaur, September 2016
259 pages
$24.99
ISBN: 1250103169
Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada
The Colorado prairie, so close to the eastern border of the state, is the setting of Kevin Wolf's debut novel. Wolf's Brandon, Colorado, is a tiny town (though not as deserted as the ghost town that actually exists in Brandon). There's a small café, a school, a bison farm, and not too much else. But this is the town where Chase Ford, Brandon's one claim to fame, was born and where he learned to play basketball. Ford escaped Brandon as soon as he could, married a country singer, made a lot of money playing ball, and found it nearly impossible to extricate himself from the hold of the drugs he took when he was hurt. He arrives back in Brandon, his homeplace, at the same time that several murders take place – murders that seem somehow connected to the returning town hero.
While Ford attempts to find the half-sister he never met, he must deal with the animosity of his high-school rival on and off the court, now Sheriff Lincoln Kendall. He and the Sheriff are both pursued by the café owner, who once was the girl Ford stole from Kendall. It seems that Chase Ford is the only one who got away from the town, and his old friends all remain to remind him of the challenges of his life there as well as his responsibilities to those he left behind. In addition to the Sheriff and his ex-girlfriend, Ford has connections to a game warden, a plain speaking policeman, an anti-government loner, and just about everyone he comes into contact with in today's Brandon.
Wolf brings each character, no matter how incidental, to life. The reader feels almost as if (s)he has grown up with the characters. There is depth to each, and each plays a unique role in the tragedy that Ford faces. Ford himself is portrayed as a deeply flawed but deeply good person. As the book draws to a close, a sense of redemption permeates the world created by the Wolf's words. But between the opening page and the closing one, there is an intense plot that keeps the reader reading on. It's hard to set this book down.
Chase Ford's homeplace is so well portrayed that the reader has the sense of having visited a place different from his or her home, but clearly the home Chase has been missing. The reader may have never been to a remote prairie town, seen a bison, met a hermit, been caught in a wildfire…but after reading THE HOMEPLACE, that same reader will feel as if all off those experiences are a part of his or her own history. This is an amazingly well realized depiction of a small Western town, and the book deserves the Tony Hillerman Prize that it recently won.
§ Sharon Mensing is the Head of School of Emerald Mountain School, an independent school in the mountains of Colorado, where she lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors.
Reviewed by Sharon Mensing, September 2016
THE HOMEPLACE
Author(s):
Kevin Wolf
There is nothing simple about life in rural Comanche County in The Homeplace. Though the setting might be described by some as “the middle of nowhere,” Kevin Wolf's debut mystery novel takes you on an adventure in the eastern Colorado prairies. While a few minor questions remain unanswered at the end, The Homeplace is ultimately a thriller that is hard to put down with its constant suspense and intriguing characters.
Chase Ford has returned to Comanche County, Colo., for the first time in 16 years. A former basketball star who was adored by his hometown, Chase has experienced much tribulation of late. It now seems his run of misfortune has come along with him, as a string of mysterious murders and disappearances of beloved locals occurs in the days immediately following Chase's return. And it just so happens that the victims seemingly have connections to Chase. Subsequently finding himself in the middle of a police investigation, Chase is left wondering whether he should leave Comanche County once more, except this time for good. (MINOTAUR, Sep., 272 pp., $24.99)
Reviewed by:
Tom Matuza