Arkansas author and former high school football coach Eli Cranor produced, for me, arguably the best debut crime novel of last year with the extraordinary Don’t Know Tough. It had evocative prose and the jagged first-person voice of rage-filled, abused teenage football star Billy Lowe. It heralded the arrival of a powerful new storyteller.
So I was curious to crack open Ozark Dogs, Cranor’s second effort that’s part-inspired by a true story from his Arkansas hometown.
Not only is there no ‘sophomore slump’, Ozark Dogs may be even better than Cranor’s brilliant debut. High standards, exceeded.
Jeremiah Fitzjurls is an old man with violence scratching at his soul. A Vietnam War sniper with a Bronze Star, an armoury full of weapons, and too many bad memories. His days are spent crushing cars at his junkyard and trying to protect his beloved granddaughter, Joanna, from sins new and old. His son, Joanna’s father, is in prison for murder. Their town doesn’t forget, and neither have the Ledfords, a vicious concoction of white supremacists and meth dealers. So when Joanna disappears after Homecoming, a violent reckoning is coming, unless Craven County Sheriff Mona McNabb can stop it.
Ozark Dogs is the kind of book that burrows beneath your skin. Cranor’s crafted a gritty, epic tale of family burdens and long shadows cast by past misdeeds. Terrible people, or good people making terrible choices; the awful impact may be the same. Superb.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eli Cranor lives and writes from the banks of Lake Dardanelle, a reservoir of the Arkansas River nestled in the heart of True Grit country. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Don’t Know Tough, won the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest and was named one of the ‘Best Books of the Year’ by USA Today and one of the ‘Best Crime Novels’ of 2022 by the New York Times. Eli also pens a weekly column, ‘Where I’m Writing From’ for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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