What others are saying about
Riding a Blue Horse
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Powerful Characterization -- Molly and Stupe would seem to be two of life's losers. She's been forced into a life of child prostitution and unknowingly may be headed for a fatal role in a snuff film. He pumps gas in the convenience store owned by his thoroughly unlikable father in rural West Virginia, a store that fronts for something much more sinister. But when plucky Molly and good-natured Stupe join forces, they end up doing more than many of the straight-arrow law enforcement investigators in getting to the bottom of the nasty business and trying to put things right. What's more, they both grow through their various challenges into a team the reader will remember long after closing the book.
~ The Roanoke Times
The hell-on-wheels Molly is loaded with character, as is her champion Shug's gentle, simple-minded son, Stupe.
~ The New York Times Book Review
Very, very impressive characterizations make this debut effort stand out. No less impressive is the great sense of locale. The remote Appalachian backwoods literally comes alive. . . . this is a remarkable achievement and well worth the reader's time.
~ Deadly Pleasures:
A Mystery Fan Magazine (Larry Gandle)
Powerful Characterization -- Molly and Stupe would seem to be two of life's losers. She's been forced into a life of child prostitution and unknowingly may be headed for a fatal role in a snuff film. He pumps gas in the convenience store owned by his thoroughly unlikable father in rural West Virginia, a store that fronts for something much more sinister. But when plucky Molly and good-natured Stupe join forces, they end up doing more than many of the straight-arrow law enforcement investigators in getting to the bottom of the nasty business and trying to put things right. What's more, they both grow through their various challenges into a team the reader will remember long after closing the book.
~ The Roanoke Times
The hell-on-wheels Molly is loaded with character, as is her champion Shug's gentle, simple-minded son, Stupe.
~ The New York Times Book Review
Very, very impressive characterizations make this debut effort stand out. No less impressive is the great sense of locale. The remote Appalachian backwoods literally comes alive. . . . this is a remarkable achievement and well worth the reader's time.
~ Deadly Pleasures:
A Mystery Fan Magazine (Larry Gandle)
A TwinPeaks-like odyssey--country noir. Elliott makes the most of this clash of worlds in the early going, and the novel soars whenever foulmouthed Molly takes center stage.
~ Booklist
Carter Elliott brings to life the dialect and the folkways of one West Virginia community in this debut crime novel that snakes up snow-covered Sad Mother Mountain and skids down Dumb John's Mountain with page-turning prose skating by faster than a car hitting ice on a hairpin curve. The former CIA officer/Special Agent with a graduate degree in clinical psychology puts his background to good use in a poignant, richly layered story that resonates both in the heart and mind.
~ Jody Ewing, The Sioux City Weekender
Read the Weekender article here