Meth.Murder.Mama.Madness.Missouri

Dale Banks works a county cop in Gasconade, a place where the family from ‘Deliverance’ would fit right in. The town has been swallowed up by Crank. People deal in it, use it, abuse it and their families are subjected to the horrors and unpredictability of meth.

Dale finds $52,000 under an overflowing cat litter litter tray, in a putrid trailer, which doubles as a meth lab. He decides to keep it. Surely he deserves this cash and can use it for good, rather than let these rotten toothed junkies stick it in their arm.

This is where the story begins and we see the grubby underbelly of a town with no aspirations, poverty, illiteracy and one which is in the grip of a drug that promises heaven but delivers hell.

Some of the pages made me gag. I could smell the grime lined trailers and body odour of the inhabitants of Gasconade. The words were rough, exposing and vivid.

‘They spent the afternoon butchering horses, Reverend Butch Pogue drilled holes through the back legs and attached a contraption he’d built, then secured a metal bar above the hooves with bolts, and Junior pulled the tractor in low gear and raised the dead horse up in the great oak, where the Reverend skinned it out. Junior pulled the hide off in patches and sheets, and steam rose off the meat in waves of stench the Reverend found intoxicating’.

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If you are looking for a feel good book with rollicking laughs and a hero, this is not the book for you. If you want a glimpse into what some of Americas poor and forgotten communities and the reality of meth addiction, wrapped up in a thrilling plot, then this will most certainly be an eye opener for you.

Four Out Of Five Stars

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