GRIND SLOWLY, GRIND SMALL is the second Big Ray Elmore novel by Thomas Holland, but it stands perfectly well on its own. In the year 1960 in the small town of Split, Tree, Arkansas, a construction site stumbles on an old skeleton. Chief of Police Ray “Big Ray” Elmore is called to the scene and soon realizes the remains are of a young girl—which is a mystery, because Split Tree is too small for people to go missing without being noticed. As Ray investigates, he also pines for his first love, Grace, now married to the detestable Carl Trimble, and deals with the clinical depression of his own wife, Ellen Mae. Ray has a real skill dealing with people—he knows when to flatter, when to threaten, and when to humbly ask for assistance. His determined investigation soon produces a likely identity of the body, and the victim’s powerlessness and hopelessness pushes Ray to seek justice even though no one else seems to care. He follows the clues until they lead him to an emotional decision that might lead to his own destruction instead of justice.

Holland brings Split Tree to life on the page, depicting a bucolic small town where Big Ray’s kids ramble around safely unsupervised and couples spend their evenings sipping sweet tea on the porch. He has a real skill fleshing out the setting and bringing his characters to life, and Big Ray’s simple decency is compelling, especially as he begins to piece together the horrific events behind his dead body. He’s one of those tough guys you root for. Holland has a tendency to overwrite; every conversation repeats information and bits of business—so many cigarettes are offered and lit in the course of this story it could be a drinking game. While this may reflect the reality of small-town Rules of Politeness, it makes for occasionally tedious reading and slows down the narrative repeating information the reader already has.

The mystery behind the cold case isn’t particularly difficult to figure out despite Holland’s attempts to obscure it with some classic red herring plotting. This isn’t necessarily a problem, as the real pleasure of the story is in the telling and the detailed depiction of a place and time and the people living there, but it is slightly disappointing for readers hoping for a true mystery. And while the “good guys” in the story are portrayed as flawed and complex, the antagonists aren’t given the same benefit, and are presented as purely terrible human beings with zero redeeming qualities. This robs the story of some tension, as there’s little reason to think that a man as obviously good as Big Ray would not prevail against enemies as weak and corrupt as these.

Thomas Holland does an excellent job of creating a sense of place and a cast of characters who feel real in GRIND SLOWLY, GRIND SMALL, the second “Big Ray Elmore” novel. The mystery at its center isn’t much of a puzzle, but there’s a lot of pleasure in getting to know Big Ray and his fellow residents of Split Tree, Arkansas.

~Jeff Somers for IndieReader