{"id":2502,"date":"2021-08-12T16:43:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T16:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2502"},"modified":"2023-04-02T23:13:17","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T23:13:17","slug":"pay-dirt-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2502","title":{"rendered":"Pay Dirt Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this striking, character-driven debut, Annie McIntyre is back in her stifling\u2014temperature-wise and socially\u2014Texas hometown, Garnett, where football is a religion and prom queen a lifetime appointment. Smart, introspective Annie escaped and went to college, but now she\u2019s waiting tables while student-loan repayments loom. When a hit-and-run death and the strangling of Annie\u2019s coworker happen within days of each other, it seems like Garnett\u2019s dirt and buildings as much as its people heave a resigned sigh at another thing to deal with. Annie\u2019s former-sheriff grandfather now has a private investigation business, but it falls mostly to his granddaughter to care enough to solve the cases. The language of Annie\u2019s inner thoughts is the kind of writing that makes you too stunned to read on for a bit. Her anguish at a teenage attack is \u201ca morsel of pain under my tongue\u201d and her lingering bedtime thoughts are \u201cghosts pressed and curled against my back.\u201d Allen already won the Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Set in the Southwest for this book, and no wonder<\/strong>. While waiting for this, try Wiley Cash\u2019s also-stunning A Land More Kind Than Home<\/em>, which Allen\u2019s writing brings to mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this striking, character-driven debut, Annie McIntyre is back in her stifling\u2014temperature-wise and socially\u2014Texas hometown, Garnett, where football is a religion and prom queen a lifetime appointment. Smart, introspective Annie…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[55,58,82,164,56],"class_list":["post-2502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-mystery-detective","tag-private-investigators","tag-small-town-rural","tag-star","tag-women-sleuths"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Pay-Dirt-400x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Pay-Dirt-400x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Henrietta Thornton","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=4"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}