"Man-Killer" is a short novel of country pulp by Tampa Bay writer Talmage Powell. You won't go wrong picking up anything by Powell. His writing style is not filled with fancy prose and probably most of his books don't stand out from the pack as being unique, but he is certainly a great writer. He knows how to tell a story and, in the end, that's what is most important.

The plot here consists of the following: Wade Calhoun is head over heels in love with Vicky Hustin, who while waiting for her two-years of spousal desertion to run its course has split her time between Calhoun and a rich, dapper gentleman from the City. Vicky is from the McCalls, hillbilly trash from up in the hills. No one in this small-town thinks she is any good to begin with and, when her husband comes back and is soon killed, she is the only suspect. It doesn't help that she is seen leaving the murder scene and her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon. It doesn't help that she was pretty much forced to marry Rock Hustin, who was pretty much a pathological criminal.

The town, just about every last one of them, is ready to see her hang for this crime. Calhoun, however, isn't going to give up on her even if everything he does to save her turns against him.

Powell does a great job in this novel of painting this small mountain town and the insular community there. As a reader, you really get a feel for Calhoun being alone with no one else he can really count on.

It is a story about trust and loyalty and betrayal. It is also a story about cages and finding a way out of cages. Although as a reader you are never quite sure of whether or not you should be rooting for Vicki, you feel her pain as she tries to escape from all the cages of her life, beginning with being born into the no-good McCalls and being forced into a marriage with Rock, who was himself no-good in his way. Being locked in the county jail seems almost to her like being locked away in the final cage.
One of the things about reading Talmage Powell's novels is that he writes so smoothly that, before you even realize it, you've rocketed your way through the book. ( )