This is one of the best ongoing series being published today. Laying Bones is the latest installment, and it's impossible to find fault with this book. GREAT storytelling and impossible to put down. The author just continues to craft one amazing book after the other. I'm hooked!

As someone who is born and bred Deep South, I felt that the corn-pone dialogue and euphemisms were overkill. It made Ned seem more of a caricature than a character. I had a hard time keeping up with the storyline since there were so many characters, murders and scheming going on. Multiple tangent storylines. I didn't feel that the grandkids' story really added much depth to the plot and it was half of the book. I struggled to finish this one.

Enjoyed it, it's gripping and entertaining.
Solid mystery, well thought and interesting characters, a plot that kept me hooked.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

It's been a very long three years since the last Red River mystery, and I was thrilled to bits to find out that Reavis Wortham had finally written another one. Laying Bones is an excellent addition to the series, and it has a great twist at the end that I didn't see coming (but should have).

Wortham always creates a strong mystery and finding the truth behind R.B. Parker's death is no exception. In Laying Bones, he gets extra points for fooling me, although I'm going to say that I was so wrapped up in the story that I ignored the clues he planted along the way. Besides the mystery, there are two major reasons why I enjoy this Red River series so much: the pitch-perfect sense of place and a standout cast of characters.

Wortham puts you right smack dab in the middle of rural northeast Texas in the 1960s and lets you watch as the problems of the outside world slither in. He can paint a scene that comes alive in your mind's eye, and he does it, not just by visual cues of kids going to see a John Wayne movie in a midnight blue 1964 Comet but also by language, and I think it's the language more than anything else that draws me so deeply into Wortham's stories. In the small farm village where I grew up, we didn't say "barbed wire," it was "bobwire" like it is in Wortham's fictional Center Springs-- and "You ain't just a woofin'" was a common phrase used that I haven't heard since I moved away.

The second major reason, the standout cast of characters, is probably the strongest reason of all for my love of this series. Wortham lets you see the story from more than one point of view. You get to see the world through Ned Parker's teenage grandson Top's eyes as well as those of his young cousins and friends. In Laying Bones, Top mostly feels like a fifth wheel as the others have begun pairing up. These kids are good kids, but they certainly do have a knack for being where they shouldn't be-- usually at the instigation of the free-spirited Pepper. However, if they didn't have that knack, they wouldn't be able to provide Ned and the others with valuable information from time to time.

You also get to see the story through the grownups' eyes. There's a whole passel of Parkers led by Ned. Cody, his nephew, is the police chief who's finally reached the stage of his career where he knows when to tell his uncle to calm down and stay put. But of all the grownup characters, one of my two favorites is big John Washington, the Black deputy. In his quiet way, readers get to see what life was like for Blacks in 1960s Texas. When it comes right down to it, I don't know who I'd want to have at my back in a fight, John Washington or retired Texas Ranger Tom Bell. Mr. Tom might have been chasing outlaws in the 1930s, but anyone who dismisses either him or Ned Parker as just an old man does so at their own peril. Both of these men don't talk much but they have a huge presence.

From the mystery to the sense of place to the characters, these Red River mysteries are most definitely more-ish, and I hope with all my heart that it's not another three years before I see these folks again.

(Review copy courtesy of the publisher and Net Galley)

This is an interesting and well crafted small town Texas mystery set in the late 1960s, when so much was changing. Constable Ned Parker doesn't believe the accident that killed his his nephew RB was really an accident. At the same time, his grandson Top, who narrates part of the story, is coping with being 14. There's much more happening in Center Spring than meets the eye and these two seem to run into most of it The Starlight Club, a dive bar, is at the root of a twisted group of smugglers, bad guys, and others= and what goes on there has led to more than one murder. No spoilers from me. I've not read this series but that wasn't a problem (although I admit to periodically feeling there were too many characters and relatives). The voices of both Ned and Top come through clearly. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read for those who like crime novels set before cell phones etc.

I have enjoyed Laying Bones a Texas Red River mystery by Reavis Z. Wortham. Remember that name. If you by some chance have missed him and his books? Shame on you. He is one of the best authors right now. He has a way with the written word like no one else except James Lee Burke. His stories are funny, dark and thrilling. Once again we are back in time, it's 1969 on the Red River and they are having troubles with booze, gambling and narcotics. Not to mention what side of the border is the gambling going on. Oh, I must not forget the murders. I must thank #PoisonedPenPress and #Netgalley for giving me this arc. This one is highly recommended.

Interesting read with likable characters. I'm a bit sad I picked up the series so late but the story stood well on its own. Had a good ol boy small town feel and the narrative kept it engaging until the end. I'll search out the beginning of the series and give them a try. Nicely done.

Laying Bones (by Reavis Wortham) is the eighth book in The Red River Mystery Series, a series of books set in rural Northwest Texas in the 1960s. This is the first one in this series that I've read and it works fine as a standalone although it seems more like one complete, self-contained chapter of an ongoing saga.

From the blurb: "It's January, 1969, in the small rural community of Center Springs, Texas. Constable Ned Parker is looking into the seemingly accidental death of his nephew R.B., who was found in his overturned pickup near Sanders Creek bridge. ... Constable Parker finds himself involved in a high stakes game of consequences with no end-game in sight."

Shady honky-tonks, drugs, murders, rowdy good ol' boys, small town politics, and a world that's changing too fast to suit good country folk -- that's the basic set-up. The plot unfolds in a narrative that alternates between third person and first person (Full disclosure; I've never been especially fond of that type of alternating narrative perspective).

The first person part is told from the point of view of Ned's grandson Top, a fourteen-year old boy who lives with his grandparents. That part of the story is part coming-of-age story and part color commentary that provides a "folksy" background for what's happening. On the downside, as is the case in many small communities, about half of all those involved seem to be related and it can be a bit of a chore trying to keep up with Top's references to Uncle so-and-so, Aunt such-and-such, and Cousin this-one or that-one.

Top isn't all that involved in the central mystery so it really ends up being something of a mash-up of coming-of-age and rural crime fiction.

It gets a little disorienting at first, trying to keep up with a good sized cast of characters, but once it all starts unfolding it comes together pretty well. All in all it's a good story, I've already made a point of obtaining the first book in the series and, if it holds up, I'll probably read the others.

*There are a sprinkling of four-letter words, some violence (not graphic), and adult situations (again, more suggestive than graphic) but it falls well within a PG-13 rating.

***I received a digital copy of this title from NetGalley.