The Keepers of Truth

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

It is the mid-80s in post-industrial America. In a small town graced with the decaying hulks of defunct factories, young journalist and college dropout Bill churns out lengthy essays on the death of industry and of America itself for The Daily Truth, whose scoops rarely rise above the latest home-bake contest. The static summer is punctured when local bad boy Ronny Lawton reports his father missing. A dismembered finger is found and all suspect the son of murdering his hated father, but nothing can be proved. The sorry tale of the white trash Lawtons hypnotises the town and Ronny Lawton becomes a local icon. Bill becomes increasingly obsessed with the story ¿ he gets involved with Ronny¿s estranged wife, finds a decomposing human head, and ends up as a suspect in the murder case himself. Things come to a head and Ronny Lawton holds his wife, child and Bill hostage in a confrontation with the FBI. Bill escapes with the woman and child and contemplates the American dream gone sour.

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Publishers Weekly Review

This curiously landscaped crime drama, Collins's U.S. debut and a Booker Prize nominee, showcases the author's cool, playful competence. Captivatingly set in a small, nameless rust belt town left far behind in the economic dust, the story loosely hangs on the disappearance of Old Man Lawton. Locals believe he was killed by his no-good son, Ronny, but police don't have enough evidence to make an arrest. Though the official investigation soon comes to a dead end, the search becomes the obsession of the story's narrator, a man referred to only as Bill, who works as a reporter for the town's newspaper, The Truth. Bill pursues the case along with two of his colleagues, Sam and Ed, bumping along in a bizarre, dreamlike hunt that yields few clues, but succeeds at illuminating life in a small town mired in steep decline. Big industrial employers are long gone, replaced by fast food chains and strip malls. Alcoholism runs high. Everybody knows everyone else and, more chillingly, knows each other's secrets and shortcomings. It is no surprise that the search for Old Man Lawton becomes a bloodthirsty affair that brings out the town's true nature. Collins, an American citizen published primarily in his native Ireland (Emerald Underground; The Man Who Dreamt of Lobsters), displays a craftsman's touch throughout this arresting, frequently creepy tale of an America not often viewed. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved