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John Ramsey Miller would be an interesting study even to one unfamiliar with his rapidly growing body of work. He is one of those individuals who seems to hover around the woodwork in a large gathering but whose breadth of knowledge on topics as diverse as photography and firearms quickly brings him to the forefront. His Winter Massey novels --- INSIDE OUT, UPSIDE DOWN and SIDE BY SIDE --- reintroduced him to readers familiar with THE LAST FAMILY, his stand-alone debut novel, and enlarged and broadened his audience with each successive work. I knew he had achieved a breakthrough of sorts when a shop at Disney World displayed all of his works among an otherwise sparse variety of paperbacks.
intriguing, enigmatic foil to former U.S. Marshal Massey. TOO FAR GONE is ostensibly a stand-alone work (we'll see about that) featuring Keen in a solo performance in which Massey is only mentioned indirectly. It is, interestingly enough, Miller's best work to date. TOO FAR GONE is set in New Orleans, with Hurricane Katrina just a few days from an uncertain landfall. Keen, ready to leave the city, is asked to assist the local authorities in the investigation of an apparent abduction. Given that Keen's forte is locating kidnapping victims before they are killed, she jumps into the case immediately, even as storm clouds gather from both within and without the investigation.
Gary West is the apparent abductee who is the subject of the case. He's the husband of Casey LePointe West, the heiress to a fortune of unimaginable wealth. Though Casey and Keen come from radically disparate backgrounds, their respective childhood traumas cause them to form an unlikely bond as Keen follows a murky trail that leads not only through untamed swampland but also the corrupt and tangled politics of the Crescent City. All the while, however, the threat of Hurricane Katrina lends an additional ticking clock to the narrative, though Miller wisely keeps the storm itself as a potent but invisible threat until literally the very end of TOO FAR GONE.
Keen is an able but believable protagonist, pursuing both victim and villain with a determined doggedness, and her quietly complex psyche adds a dimension to her not often found in protagonists of this type. It is the villains, however, who almost steal the show. Miller can create bad guys of every shade and stripe who are the stuff of waking, walking nightmares, and the ones in TOO FAR GONE are worth the price of admission alone.
Miller's prose sparkles and shines with understated brilliance --- his crime scene descriptions and verbal swamp tour will make your skin jump up and leave the room --- and while plot is in the driver's seat in this fine work, each of Miller's characters is vivid and real. Please be assured: if you were hoping for another Winter Massey novel you will not feel shortchanged in the least by TOO FAR GONE. Miller may in fact have done his job too well in that regard, as his presentation of Keen made this reader forget all about Massey. Keen is far too good a character to consign to solitary stand-alone. It would be good to see more of her. And soon.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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