****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Alma is called home to Billings, Montana from Seattle for the worst possible reason. A death in the family. A family that has already been decimated by life overflowing with tragedy. It is the last place she wants to be, especially during the final stages of a case that can make her career as a lawyer in her high stress job. Guilt and a sense of duty bring her home to deal with her younger sister's sad, and yes, suspicious death. What's a little more stress in a competent young woman's life? She gives herself six days to deal with the necessaries for Vickie and the twelve year old daughter Brittany she has left behind. Once there she must face her hard-hearted Uncle Walt and the ever-ailing Helen, his wife. Her brother Pete, winds up surprising her beyond imagination. There is also a disgusting businessman trying to buy her family's old homestead by hectoring her sweet grandma Maddie, now that Vickie is gone, and a Native American detective who steadily works the case of homicide versus accidental death. And Chance. Hey, the story is in Montana, someone's got to be name Chance! And yes, he was a rodeo star and has now been humbled (or smoothed out) by life.There was so much packed into this wonderfully told story, and I loved reading every part of it. Alma gets body slammed by facing her hometown again. A lesser person may have been destroyed by that, but she proves she is a survivor. There are scenes where I had to suspend judgment and accept that justice sometimes gets complicated. Best of all, the author maintained reverence and awe for Montana in her prose, and the story ends just the way I wanted it to, for all the right reasons, and without tying everything up in a bow.The details of the bleakness of Billings and the hardness of many residents who can trace their lineage back centuries, is part of the draw of the story. I have visited Billings only once, but it made me a little sad. There was a women's prison right smack in the middle of town! However in the backmatter of her book Carrie La Seur gives a walking tour of her true hometown, Billings. Now I want to go back just to explore every step she suggests.The book is written in an unusual POV (2nd?) that took me by surprise, but the beautiful prose quickly helped me get used to it. I highly recommend this gritty story filled with Big Sky beauty and the pain that vast blue firmament can command.
