I read an except of this and decided to read it because the language in his description of the characters is quite good. The main character is James Cole Prather. It says right off in chapter 1 "He is twenty three years old. He has no reason to imagine within a year he might be dead." So that is the expectation that hangs over it. But as the book goes along it is less clear whether what is laid out will be followed. And, I am not going to give anything away here. There is a point later on in the book that I wanted to quote, but I can't find it. It talks about mysteries as who done its, saying that they describe a murder, and then all the steps to solving the murder, but what is really important are the steps, the people and the events leading up to it. So, then I am expecting that this is that new kind of mystery. It does seem to be this, but the mystery doesn't necessarily apply to James Cold, because his brother, Fleece, has gone missing, perhaps with a load of drugs - for he works for a drug peddler - or perhaps murdered for attempting it. Also, his father was murdered years ago, though that may be a mystery only to James, and to the reader for awhile.
The other main character is Shady Beck, who was first his brother's girlfriend, and who would become his if James had his way, but for now, they hang out, and she cares for him, but isn't sure how.
The other important characters are his mother, Lyda, a long time addict; the drug pusher, Mister Gruel, who manages yet to have some fatherly feelings towards not only his own son, who goes by the name of Spunk, but also perhaps for the two brothers, James and Fleece; and his partner, Noe, who appears to have no humanity at all; and a preacher, ex-addict.
The final character is the place, the Lake, an ingrown place that sucks one into its rules, "the kind of place people often disappeared from," where James grew up, but Shady, a few miles and a culture away, did not.
What puzzled me, reading the book, was that, though the characters were so well drawn, for the longest time I didn't begin to care about them. I think this had to do with the uncertainty about whether and how they cared for one another. This changed Io that, at the end, I cared very much about what happened to James and Shady. It is a slow build that follows their relationship. By they way much else happens that affects their simply being together. But they are also part of that outside, so they bring on their own fate as they try to understand it. ( )

I Got to page 125 and had to quit, and to get this far took multiple days. This is one very boring book and by this point in an almost 300 page book, something has to make the reader want to proceed. The characters up to this point are one dimensional and behave as stereotypical as possible.
The author can write, he checks off as many of the MFA requirements that books these days feel the need to include, copying the styles of Cormac McCarthy and the descriptions by James Lee Burke, but mimicking these writers isn't the same as telling a story that these authors would tell. In this case the story is just not interesting, and I bet I can figure out the ending. ( )