The Trees Beyond the Grass by Robert Reeves

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I decided to read this mystery/thriller as soon as I received it cause I plan to visit Charleston in less than one month, and the chance to read a novel set in the town was too good to let it pass. And I’m glad I did, cause Charleston is as much as a protagonist as Cole Mouzon. The Trees Beyond the Grass is a thriller with a subtheme of romance, and, at least in this novel, the love interest of Cole, Cash Calhoun, will appear well into the plot, even if he is related to Cole since the day he was born. As you can learn in the blurb, the author is planning a series, and I suppose Cole and Cash’s personal story will develop more in the next novels.

Truth be told, not Cole or Cash appear to be the typical thriller heroes, they are more “professor” like than “cop” (Cole is a civil defense counsel, Cash is an Assistant Professor of History), and even their love story is quiet and subdue, played more inside private homes than public venues; nothing is actually typical in this thriller, not even the killer, who the reader knows being a woman. Now, I don’t want to fall into stereotypes, but actually there is always this idea that the very bad ones are men, women tend to be this maternal figure who loves unconditionally; and indeed this figure is present in the novel, in the character of Cole’s older sister and a local police officer in the Town of Mount Pleasant, Jackie. Again a contraposition, a woman is the one with the fitting stereotype of a thriller novel main character.

Even if, until the last few pages, the reader knows the killer is a woman, but they don’t know who she is, knowing the name wasn’t really important; the author gives you plenty of opportunities to know her, her motives, and her actions. Plus, the weaving of the net that slowly entraps Cole is more interesting than knowing that name, more than the apex, what I enjoyed is the mounting of the anticipation.

Paperback: 402 pages
Publisher: Spartina Company Ltd The (September 18, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0989854906
ISBN-13: 978-0989854900
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