SOUTH OF HELL
P. J. Parrish
Pocket Star
Mystery
ISBN: 9781416525882
P. J. Parrish is the collaborative name of two sisters, Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols, who publish a seamless series of novels set in the 1980s that concern private investigator Louis Kincaid and his love interest, a former rookie policewoman and now detective Joe Frye.
SOUTH OF HELL, the latest installment in this superlative series, contains all of the elements that have made these books a commanding and addicting reading experience almost from their inception. Kincaid is an ex-Michigan cop, a golden boy who experienced a sudden and dramatic fall from grace and who now finds himself making ends meet, if barely, as a South Florida private detective. Frye, on the other hand, is on an upward career trajectory, employed in northern Michigan and planning a run for the sheriff’s office. The two of them make an unlikely couple: she’s white, he’s of mixed race; she’s squared away, he’s not; and both are, each relative to the other, geographically undesirable. They have so many rough edges that it’s inevitable someone gets cut, and often. Rough edges, however, also provide stimulation, and Parrish, with subtle revelation, communicates the unspoken attraction between the couple as well.
Kincaid is beginning to feel somewhat prickly over the fact that he has not heard from Frye for several days. When he eventually receives a call from Michigan, it is not from Frye but from Jake Shockey, a middle-aged police detective. Shockey wants Kincaid to come up to Ann Arbor to assist him in reopening an old missing person case. Kincaid handled the initial investigation, though his memory of doing so is next to none. His education at the university in Ann Arbor ended in disappointment, his career in law enforcement terminated in bitterness, and he is considered to be “toxic.” And, as we come to learn, he has a secret buried in the past that is a source of sharp if silent shame to him. Still, a trip there will bring Kincaid closer to Frye.
Hoping to fill time as well as salvage the relationship, Kincaid returns only to almost immediately regret it. Shockey, though not broken, is so badly bent as to make little difference between the two. The case he would like to reopen is that of Jean Brandt, with whom he was involved at the time of her disappearance. Her husband, Owen, who has since been imprisoned for assaulting another woman, is about to be released. Shockey is convinced that Owen murdered his wife and hid the body, perhaps on his ramshackle farm. He wants Kincaid to assist him in tampering with evidence in the case. A horrified Kincaid refuses but reluctantly agrees to help him revive the investigation.
Assisted by Frye in a non-official capacity, Kincaid conducts a search of Brandt’s abandoned farm --- located, ironically, just south of hell --- only to find a young woman hiding in the decrepit house. It develops that the girl, unknown to Shockey, is Amy, Jean’s daughter. Amy is close to feral as the result of a number of factors, not the least of which is her having borne witness to a series of violent events that are locked deep within her mind. Meanwhile, Owen, a terrifying, violent force housed in a waste of skin, is released from prison, hell bent on returning to and acquiring what he considers to be his, as well as finding out once and for all what happened to Jean. Kincaid, Shockey and Owen are soon on a collision course that results in a resolution, but one paid with violent and bloody coin.
The events set forth in SOUTH OF HELL mark a significant turning point for Kincaid, as he is forced to make one of those choices that will change his life, perhaps forever. In the course of solving one mystery from his past, Kincaid must confront, quite dramatically, the aftershock of his own past actions. There is also a bit of neat contrast here, a very subtle comparison of how two men react quite differently to similar revelations. In addition, the book introduces a couple of new characters, of whom we will almost certainly see more.
SOUTH OF HELL ultimately explores the extremes of human behavior, and many of the points in between, through a stark and unflinching point of view that is nonetheless tempered with the promise and fulfillment of redemption.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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