Fallen Mountains by Kimi Cunningham Grant is a very highly recommended novel of mystery and suspense.

Sheriff John "Red" Redifer is the only law enforcement official in the small town of Fallen Mountains, Pennsylvania. He is planning to turn in his letter of resignation the next day, but when Transom Shultz is reported to be missing, he knows that there may be many more complications beyond the obvious. Small towns are full of secrets that are always waiting to be exposed and Fallen Mountains has its share of them.

Sheriff Red is haunted by a case and cover-up from seventeen years ago and involved Transom. "Possum" was a victim at the hands of Transom at that time and may have sought revenge. Or could Chase, whose family land Transom bought to help Chase financially after his grandfather died, have taken matters into his own hand due to Transom's underhanded selling of timber and mineral rights. Or is Laney involved, the long-time friend of both Chase and Transom, who has her own reasons for not trusting Transom.

The characters are all finely drawn and portrayed as realistic, flawed people. They all have connections to each other and share a history. Loyalty comes into play for all the characters. Do you keep the secrets of the past or let them out, causing untold hurt and personal devastation? Some of these secrets could destroy individuals and others could devastate many people. The small town setting plays a huge role in the novel, because everyone knows everyone else and their background and history in the community.

This is a very well-written character driven atmospheric novel where the denouement is not obvious because of the tangled history of all the characters and the many secrets they are all harboring. The even pace of the revelations about the characters in the presentation allows the suspense to build incrementally and will keep you glued to the pages. The narrative covers the present investigation and incidents from the past. The final ending is intense and haunting.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Amberjack Publishing.

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4.5 Stars

In the small town of Fallen Mountains, everyone knows their neighbor and most disturbances are of the minor infraction. However, when Transom Shultz is reported missing only after having recently returned to his hometown all doesn’t seem as it appears. As such, motives are questioned and secrets threaten to expose many. As Sheriff John “Red” Redifer leads the investigation, he hopes the past will remain silent.

“And here in Fallen Mountains, you don’t really get to unhitch yourself from your past.”

Alternating between a past and present timeline, the story delves into the essence of multiple characters, pinpointing their struggles and highlighting their strengths. Richly layered and choreographed, the plot unfolds steadily peering into how complicated a simple life can become by trusting the wrong people.

“I like that about you. You see the best in people. You’ve got grace for them, I should say. You forgive.”

From the beginning, I was hooked by the quaint rural setting and the resilience of these characters. In addition to the immediate mystery, the theme of nature abounds until the layers of landscape are excavated and discarded similar to character decisions. I definitely sympathized with certain characters and the ending was quite satisfying.

Fallen Mountains is a crime mystery centered on righting wrongs.

Have to say, the book cover sparked my interest. I knew it was going to be dark and gritty, which are both pluses, in my book! I felt a connection with Red (Sheriff) he’s so close to retirement...he can almost taste it! However, a report of a local missing boy comes it, thus retirement is on hold until he can solve the case. I had to keep up with the “Before” & “After” of each chapter. I didn't find it too challenging because of great world building and the knowledge behind the character(s).

I rated this book a 4.25/5 stars. I enjoy the small town mystery of the novel! This was a well thought out novel and I recommend giving it a read!! Thank you to Amberjack Publishing, Netgalley, and Kim Cunningham for providing an ARC for my honest review.

Leaving the past behind, but it never really past, with shadows they hide, the secrets that are hidden, ones that can tear people apart.
This small town mystery with the denizens of Fallen Mountains, people all connected, to each other, to the labor and land, all affected things, with the apparent and hidden things, lies and secrets, running though peoples conscious and in the blood that runs, blood that can rise into that hot rage, ones of disappointment and injustice, as old as man itself in a crucible of good and evil cycling forward into a tragedy in Fallen Mountains.


This tale that starts with mention of Faulkner in the narrative takes me back to his works.
Works with that old rage, that heart at battle with itself, ones Faulkner talked and wrote about with characters memorable and distinct, misfits, villainous, good and likable men and women, that old injustices, ones of clan, or kin, through land and tragedy.

The author careful suspends the “past that is not dead” from the reader peeling away bit by bit, unraveling the hidden and truth prevailing one scene after another, all careful crafted with believable characters of the likable and the unlikable kind, along with the building of empathy, captivating the reader with this mystery with crafted deliberation with words to have contemplation within the reader for a time, and these tales may pass, live on, and one hopes never dead.

Starring:
Fallen Moutains
Church Hollow

Redifer “Red”
Mike Dashel

Thomas Miller

Jack Hardy
Chase Hardy
Laney Moore

JT Schultz
Marjane Schultz
Transom Schultz
Teresa

Red, Sheriff of Fallen Mountains, is ready to retire. The letter of resignation is written and he has one foot out the door when a young woman comes to him to report her fiance missing. The man in question Transom Shultz has a past in the town, and Red is worried that something he let slide almost two decades earlier may be about to come back to haunt him. Determined not to retire until the mystery is solved, he begins an investigation that seems to throw up new suspects every day. There's Possum, the guy that Transom tormented in High School, who is regarded as something of an eccentric recluse, his cousin Laney, who had a friends with benefits relationship with Transom , but is now worried that this could destroy her budding relationship with Chase. Chase has reasons of his own for wanting Transom gone, not least of which is the way he swept in and bought out Chase's family farm, then stripped it bare through logging and fracking, destroying the home that Chase thought they both loved. As the tangled web of these small town lives comes under investigation, the dark secrets come to the surface and the characters are faced with some very tough decisions.
Tautly paced and plotted, this was a real page turner that kept me guessing as to what had really happened to Transom. The characters were superbly drawn, and very easy to empathize with , particularly Chase and Laney. I loved that so many of the characters had flaws that made them feel much more real. The small town setting could have felt claustrophobic but instead I really felt like it really added to the tension.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Wow! This sort of gradually gripped me as I went on and kept increasing until it was difficult to put down!
This was also thought provoking with the moral dilemma involved.
How on earth was this going to end?

An excellent read. Can't wait for the next.

Fallen Mountains is the powerful, poignant debut novel of award-winning writer Kimi Cunningham Grant, and although it doesn't quite fit my usual go-to genres, I was mesmerised from the first few lines. It's a novel all about how the secrets of ones past have the capability of reemerging to impact your future regardless of how deeply you believe you've hidden them. The reason why so many of us are drawn to books in which secrets and lies form a substantial part of the plot is because we all have them; some large, some small.

We as humans tend to be fascinated by the unknown, the hidden, the salacious. Much like teenagers in the schoolyard, and when such hidden aspects of our lives come to the fore there is no shortage of spectators just hanging around and revelling in seeing you take a fall. This is especially true for small communities where everyone tends to know everyone else's business - or so they think.

Ms Grant is a proficient plotter and her writing makes it almost impossible not to be pulled into the story right from the start; I certainly didn't expect it to have such an impact on me so early on. The timeline moves from past to present and back again but never becomes confusing or disjointed which I was surprised about. Again, a testament to Grant's skill. Despite being under 300 pages in length, this is a novel that packs a punch. This is a character-driven tale where each of said characters are beautifully drawn and flawed; this makes it easy to engage with and invest in them as they are all so very human. Fallen Mountains is a fine example of the past coming back to haunt you, and no matter how far you run you can never outrun your past.

Many thanks to Amberjack Publishing for an ARC.

Sometimes, a book cover indicates its contents to the reader in a very accurate manner and this book's cover does exactly that.When I saw it first it felt like it would be a very atmospheric read filled with physical distances between people and stars in the night sky. I was more than happy(in a sense of the word) to encounter all that and more within its pages. 

This is not exactly a happy book, but gritty and real. Red has been Sheriff of the town for a long time and planning to turn in his resignation any day at the start of the tale. Then a worried girlfriend contacts him to look for Transom. Now we go deeper into the paths that Transom has taken through the town and the lives of all the people he came in contact with. They are all now brought to the forefront one after another and displayed to us as possible suspects and considering how life and Transom has dealt with each one, you feel a strange form of sympathy towards all of them!

The background of the town and their struggling economy is painted in stark colours and the ending is surprising in its own way. Once the story got going, I did not expect to be satisfied with the outcome but ultimately I was. This is a comparatively small book, and barring a few repetitions, concise. I liked the narration and the ability of the author to make us acquainted with the character of the people and not just their daily lives.

I received an advance copy thanks to the publishers and NetGalley, the review is all my own opinion.

I really enjoyed this story!
Red, Sheriff of Fallen Mountains, Pennsylvania is ready to retire, has his resignation letter in hand, when news comes that a local young man is missing.
Red has been sheriff here for many years in this small rural town and in his early days he covered up a crime this missing man committed.
Red must put off retirement now to get to the bottom of what has happened and the book goes back and forth between BEFORE and AFTER the occurrence in alternating chapters.
This is an atmospheric and character driven novel.

Thank you to Netgalley for this Read Now ARC!

"The past is never dead. It's not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as new but whose providence dates to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations. The quotidian demands of life distract from this resonance of images and events, but some of us feel it always."
William Faulkner

Cunningham Grant's people are not hip or fashionable but she made me care, yes care very much as I saw her tangling them in a web of cause and effect, consequences.

This felt like a well thought out work, words that that were placed exactly where they should be so you do not feel like reading this is a chore but very much more like a welcome hug enveloping you in a world where unfortunately greed has won out against beauty, love, family, friends.

Very much looking forward to her next work.

An ARC gently provided by author/publisher in return for a review.

Firstly, I’d like to thank Netgalley and, Amberjack publishing for a copy of this e-book in return for an honest review.
The book comes out on the 5th of March!

I really enjoyed this gritty, character driven story exploring the repercussions of kept dark secrets. Everyone in this small town has a secret and each character’s motivations, vulnerabilities and decision processes are deeply explored.
I particularly loved the character of Red, who despite his own secret, is an endearing old man trying to do good.

Through investigating the disappearance of Transom, son of the local moneyed family in small town Fallen Mountains, the lives and secrets of the town are revealed. Did he run away from? Was he killed? Was he murdered? And if so, by whom? There were several people who could easily have wanted him dead. But which one finally did it? Or was it something completely different? Ms. Grant does a wonderful job of delving into her character's past to help bring the reader to the truth, bouncing back and forth between before and after. A few times the timeline got a bit confusing to me. A few word changes and a couple clarifying sentences would have helped, but the issue was pretty limited so somewhat understandable in a book with two timelines. But I enjoyed the characters and how the events of the story impacted each one of them. I hope Ms. Grant continues to write because I'd like to continue reading her descriptions and her character's stories.

Red is tired and ready to retire from his job as Sheriff of the town of Fallen Mountains. In fact, it's his last day, or so he thinks. This atmospheric mystery unpacks a lot of history and bad relations in a small town. Told in before and after, it's the story of what happened to Transom Shultz and why. It's the why that's so important. Some people should not go home again and he's one of them. He did something very bad 17 years ago, something which still hangs over Red because of how he dealt with it. He's also done destructive things since he came back. No spoilers- this is a well constructed and nicely written mystery. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

The older I get, the more I appreciate main characters that are also of a certain age. Red, the sheriff of Fallen Mountains, is already to hand in his retirement letter. And when Transom Schultz goes missing, he wishes he had already done it. Especially since in his early days as sheriff, Red covered up a crime Transom committed.

Transom had left Fallen Mountains years ago. He returns and starts buying up farms and leasing the mineral rights to gas companies. In addition to the ill will generated by bring in frackers, Transom’s history with others in the community means there are plenty of suspects who could have done him harm. He’s an SOB and he’s pushed several decent people to the end of their ropes. Unlike with a lot of mysteries, I really didn’t have a feel for who could have done it.

This character driven mystery is beautifully written, as you would expect when a Faulkner passage figures prominently into Red’s upbringing. There’s a lot of grief here; a lot of loss. Not just the loss of loved ones, but of a way of life, of innocence.

There’s also a lot about forgiveness and getting beyond one’s anger. The ending was just flat out perfect.

This book reminds you how enjoyable a straightforward mystery can be. Nothing to strain its credibility. I recommend this for readers who like William Kent Krueger.

My thanks to netgalley and Amberjack Publishing for an advance copy of this book.

A very enjoyable book! I am not usually fond of books that switch from past to present, but it worked well in 'Fallen Mountains'. It's a nice easy book to read with great characters, setting and is very well written. i am not going to write what the story is about as i prefer one to read it for themselves, but i do recommend.

My thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for my copy.

Rating: 4.5 stars rounded down to 4 stars

Fallen Mountains is the name of the rural small town in eastern Pennsylvania where this story takes place. It’s also a metaphor for what is happening in this story. The mountains of tradition and long-kept secrets are certainly falling as this story unfolds. Kimi Cunningham Grant has written a gem of a mystery. The locale is almost as much of a character in the story as the humans who populate the rural town.

Transom Shulz has gone missing over an unusually sweltering Memorial Day Weekend. What follows, in alternating chapters of a dual timeline, is what happened before his disappearance, and the investigation that came afterwards.

Most of the story is told from the perspective of Fallen Mountains’ aging sheriff, John Redifer, who goes by the name of ‘Red’. We learn his backstory and the backstory of the main characters and for the most part their stories form a tangled web of small town life interactions. Some of those interactions were uplifting, some of them definitely were not. It turns out that many people in Fallen Mountains would like to see Transom high-tail it out of town again. He was a complicated guy who was used to getting his way by using his brains, or his brawn.

I really enjoyed the literary suspense of the surrounding the hunt to discover what happened to Transom. I also enjoyed the learning about the town of Fallen Mountain, and its unique and relatable cast of characters. The book's ending was a surprise to me, but it seemed so indisputably fitting. That’s the best way for a mystery to end, don’t you think?

‘Thank-You’ to NetGalley; the publisher, Amberjack Publishing; and the author, Kimi Cunningham Grant; for providing a free e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a wonderful debut novel - haunting, page turning, and a gripping yet beautiful story. With great twists that are completely earned, I couldn't put this down. Highly recommend.

I did not expect this book to draw me in and keep my attention the way it did. This is not my usual genre, well the backwoods part of the story anyways. The story takes place in a very small town, Fallen Mountains in Pennsylvania. Chapters alternate from recent past to present. In the present, farm owner Chase Hardy's grandfather just passed away and he has a huge farm to take care of. His best childhood friend Transom returns to pay his respects but offer to buy the farm. Transom makes a deal with mineral miners who start the fracking process which totally surprises and appalls Chase, being double-crossed by his friend. In the present, Transom has been missing for several days and is reported missing to the local Sheriff, Red, who is just days from retirement. The story is really interesting--how all the people in the small town's lives are intertwined and what each of them really dreams of while showing what they actually have. Wonderful portrayal of this type of life in the country, where farming and factories are what keep people's families going. They all have secrets. I had no idea where Transom was or what happened to me which is the sign of a great book! Definitely worth reading--short and to the point! Dark, gritty and well-written! Great mystery and full of suspense! Thanks so much to NG for the ARC!!!!!

I really enjoyed this story. If you love a small town mystery, add this book to your reading list! This is one of those books where I'll miss the characters because they were so well developed. Kimi did an incredible job creating scenery out of the written word. I particularly enjoyed the ending because, just when you think you know who did it, she hits you with another little twist that makes you think you knew it all along, but not so fast; loved that!

Very intense read indeed. It was everything I imagined it would be and more. Good storyline and interesting characters in there. Highly recommend