Review: Little Falls by Elizabeth Lewes

I’m thrilled to help kick off the blog tour for Little Falls by Elizabeth Lewes. Like rural noir? Small-town mysteries? Literary thrillers? If you answered yes, then you won’t want to miss this novel.

My thoughts

Debut author Elizabeth Lewes tells a haunting story of trauma, justice, and redemption in Little Falls.

This story is a tense, action packed book. If you want for plenty of gun fights, explosions, and desperate chases, with the clock ticking a countdown toward certain death, this book will satisfy you. And if you like cliff-hanger endings, it’s got you covered, too!

But it’s also a book with interesting insights into the deceptions of memory, and the way trauma impacts humans and how they think, act, or simply live life.

Camille and PTSD

What was most unforgettable for me was the way Lewes wove Camille’s PTSD into the story. In a way, her trauma is the story. On the outside, Camille is tough as nails, the very definition of resilience. Inside, she’s frightened and paranoid and haunted by memories of war, particularly the hanging death of a young soldier. She struggles to separate the past and present in her mind.

At times, I wondered what Camille was like before the war, before the trauma. It’s hard to see who she is as a person apart from that. Then I realized that’s the point: the PTSD is part of who she is now, and she can’t–perhaps ever–untangle her self from those memories. It will always be there.

Camille is an unreliable narrator. At this point in publishing, unreliable narrators almost outnumber the reliable ones in the suspense/thriller genre. It would be easy for Camille to become just another one of that number of ultimately-forgettable, often-female narrators who can’t be trusted because (fill in the blank).

But Lewes doesn’t allow that to happen. Camille is distinct. Her trauma is uniquely hers. Lewes is a military veteran herself; her experience and research give the descriptions of wartime violence a realistic feel. But the book’s depth is more than simply realism. It lies in the empathetic and compassionate way she views Camille. Even when Camille acts daft, reacting with suspicion toward people who love her (which frustrated me!) I saw why she behaved that way.

Lewes handles the issue of trauma and memory with a depth and understanding not often seen in this genre. (Though Camille would probably bristle at the suggestion that she needs something touchy-feely like compassion, rather than more ammo for her gun.)

Other Characters

The other characters are a mixed bag of sympathetic and not-so-sympathetic and can-you-believe-how-horrible-this-person-is! type unsympathetic people.

It’s easy to like Rhonda, Camille’s employee. It’s easy to hate the teen’s killers.

But it’s harder to know how to react to teenage Sophie, her daughter. For the most part, she feels like a stereotypical teenager. She seems intent on screaming at her mom, slamming doors, and disobeying every parental rule. She’s still grieving the death of her grandfather, Camille’s father, but she’s also running with a dangerous crowd.

I didn’t feel like there was as much nuance to her character as there was to Camille. The most fascinating thing is watching the mother-daughter relationship develop, especially because the mother isn’t as clear-thinking as the parent of a teenager needs to be! Though it’s clear that Camille loves her daughter, she has absolutely no idea how to parent her.

Add to the cast of characters various law enforcement officials, including a possible love interest; her manipulative ex-lover’s brother; the dead teenager’s parents; and townspeople who aren’t certain how to treat Camille. Lewes does a good job creating some intriguing characters. None are as deeply developed as Camille, though, and many are unpleasant. Considering the type of crime we’re dealing with here, that’s understandable even if it’s uncomfortable to read.

Plot

If all this makes it sound like a character-driven literary novel, the type where nothing interesting happens, don’t worry: it’s not. Lewes plunges us into a murder mystery that is equal parts horrifying and fascinating. Toward the end of the book, the suspense was nerve-racking. I didn’t want to stop reading to do anything so banal as housework, and Camille wouldn’t let me. She commanded my attention from the first page to the last. Though I did foresee a few of the twists, it didn’t diminish my enjoyment one bit!

One Favorite Thing . . .

I loved Lyle, Sophie’s uncle. He’s her father’s brother. While he’s manipulative and mooches off anyone who’ll give him money (or anything free), I still felt sympathy for the guy. He’s the perpetual underdog, and I always sympathize with fictional underdogs. (Even when I shouldn’t!) He obviously loves his niece, and though he’s hardly a model parental figure, sometimes he has better insights into Sophie’s brain than Camille does.

Overall

In the end, Little Falls satisfied my need for a literary thriller. Camille is a character who won’t be forgotten any time soon. I look forward to reading more of Lewes’s work.

Thanks to Crooked Lane Books and Elizabeth Lewes, the author, for a review copy of Little Falls in exchange for an honest review. I wasn’t required to write a positive review. Thanks also to Emma Welton of damppebbles blog tours for having me along!

Buy Little Falls now!

Purchase Links:

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3jSSe9e

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3fbXr8K

Google Books: https://bit.ly/33d25ke

Book Depository: https://bit.ly/336hnYg

Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/3ghek3i

Quick reminder. Through August 15, 2020, I’m running a giveaway for the thriller/crime novel Hinton Hollow Death Trip by Will Carver. See the giveaway post for more details on how to win a digital copy!