Mysterious, chilling, and told a breakneck pace, The Scamp will thrill readers of Daniel Woodrellâs Winterâs Bone and Roxane Gayâs An Untamed State. Rayelle Reed canât escape in her small town, where everyone knows everything and not enough: All the guys she slept with, but not the ones she loved. The baby she had out of wedlock with the pastorâs son, and how the baby died, but not the grief and guilt that consume her. At a motel bar, Rayelle meets Couper Gale, a freelance detective on a mission to investigate a rash of missing girls, and she tags along as an excuse to cross the state line. But when Couperâs investigation leads them to the mystery surrounding Rayelleâs runaway cousin Khaki, she finds she is heading straight back into everything she was hoping to leave behind. As fates become entwined, Rayelle must follow a haunted and twisted pathâleading her toward a collision where loyalties will be betrayed, memories uncovered, and family bonds shattered. Unflinchingly dark and compelling, THE SCAMP confronts head-on the issues of family origins and the bonds between mothers, daughters, and sisters. It delves deep into the cycle of abuse and poverty, questioning, in the end, the value of any one life, child or adult. In Pashleyâs hands, the lost girls of rural and industrial America, trapped in the unforgiving systems of government assistance and single parenthood, are portrayed with depth and nuance. She exposes the ingrained poverty and atmosphere of disillusionment that damns them before they have a chance and she gives them a ray of hope for a better life ahead.
The usual American province, marginalized, poor and depressed where squalor reigns, but the author describes it with a non-shabby style, not lingering on the verism of everyday life, interested instead in the unusual story of the protagonists. Two cousins separated materially but always remained united. The first, the most terrible, disappears and with false identities and always changing residence, attracts to herself other women of whom she is attracted. But neither proven harmony nor mutual desire stops her from killing them. The justification that is given is to free them from their unhappy life, from which they could never be separated, as from an original sin. The other cousin is lucky enough to meet a mature investigative journalist who lives on a caravan. He eventually realizes that the serial killer is his girlfriend's cousin. A truly extreme story whose excess is such that it has an alienating effect and creates a welcome and protective emotional distance. A good book, not for the frail.