Assumption by Percival Everett

I suppose, given the title, that a book by a prominent author among whose other works are novels like I Am Not Sidney Poitier and A History of the African-American People (proposed) by Strom Thurmond, as told to Percival Everett and James Kincaid, would come at a triptych of police procedurals / murder mysteries, delivered in the hard-boiled style of Dashiel Hammett or James M Cain but with a passing resemblance to John D McDonald, with a hidden agenda.

Or, perhaps, with a smug smile

It’s going to be hard to explain this without ruining the fun, but let’s have a go. We have Ogden Walker, son of a black father and a white mother (his father “hated white people, but not enough to refrain from marrying one,”), ex-army and drifting along in his fictional Plata county deputy sheriff’s job. He’s distant, remote, but polite for the most part, more interested in fly fishing than females, and in three separate but connected stories, he’s thrust into the worlds of prostitution, crooked FBI agents, good old fashioned racist hate groups, and poaching, careening along in his old 4X4 as professionally as he can, because that’s all that matters – moving forward and being doing things the right way. He takes a few knocks on the way but comes up, if not smiling, then at least not dead.

So far, so New Mexico Elmore Leonard.

Before coming to the big old twist at the end which subverts your cosily cosseted assumptions, it’s worth noting that the book is REALLY well written. It’s bleak, lost-town Americana, with Ogden teetering on the knife-edge of racism and acceptance. His relationship with his mother (his father has already died) is aloof but cordial – he heads over for food and accepts the gentle matronly buffeting with quiet grace – and he rebuffs the local intolerance without bile. 

OR DOES HE?!

Yes, he does. That was not the twist. 

OR WAS IT?!

See? It’s harder not to give it all away, but I suspect the observant reader will get an inkling that there’s an unusual fish on the line, even without this juvenile giveaway. It comes as a bit of a surprise even though, which speaks to Everett’s skills as a wordsmith. In fact, I’m yet to read a bad book of his, or be moved to consider a negative review.

*GO BUY SOME PERCIVAL EVERETT* klaxon.

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