The Killing Hills

LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER
'PITCH-PERFECT IN TONE, THIS IS WHAT JACK REACHER WANTS TO BE WHEN IT GROWS UP' - TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES THRILLERS OF THE YEAR
A literary master across genres, award-winning author Chris Offutt's latest novel The Killing Hills is a compelling, propulsive thriller in which a suspicious death exposes the loyalties and rivalries of a deep-rooted and fiercely private community in the Kentucky backwoods.
Mick Hardin, a combat veteran now working as an Army CID agent, is home on a leave that is almost done. His wife is about to give birth, but they aren't getting along. His sister, newly risen to sheriff, has just landed her first murder case, and local politicians are pushing for city police or the FBI to take the case. Are they convinced she can't handle it, or is there something else at work? She calls on Mick who, with his homicide investigation experience and familiarity with the terrain, is well-suited to staying under the radar. As he delves into the investigation, he dodges his commanding officer's increasingly urgent calls while attempting to head off further murders. And he needs to talk to his wife.
The Killing Hills is a novel of betrayal - sexual, personal, within and between the clans that populate the hollers - and the way it so often shades into violence. Chris Offutt has delivered a dark, witty, and absolutely compelling novel of murder and honour, with an investigator-hero unlike any in fiction.
PRAISE FOR THE KILLING HILLS
'If Lee Child and Daniel Woodrell collaborated on a hillbilly noir, the result would probably read a lot like this: tough, laconic, emotionally engaging and blackly funny, The Killing Hills makes for a very satisfying read' - IRISH TIMES (Crime Books of the Year)
'Wonderfully atmospheric thriller' - MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A riveting example of Rural Noir' - TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB (Pick of the Week)
'One hopes Offutt will bring Hardin back; he is a hell of a character!' - CRIME TIME (Book of the Month)
'Chris Offutt takes the bare bones of the traditional hard-boiled American crime story and fleshes them with a layered account of life, death and what passes for family "honour" in the backwoods Kentucky town of Rocksalt... This short, powerful novel evokes, above all else, a terrible sadness about life in the Kentucky hills and the awful inevitability of it all' - SHOTS MAG
'The Killing Hills is as poignant and powerful as they come' - CRIMEREADS (Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2021)

Chris Offutt is the author of the short-story collections Kentucky Straight and Out of the Woods, the novels The Good Brother, Country Dark and The Killing Hills, and three memoirs: The Same River Twice, No Heroes, and My Father, the Pornographer. His work has appeared in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays, among many other places. He has written screenplays for Weeds, True Blood, and Treme, and has received fellowships from the Lannan and Guggenheim foundations.