The Stills

January 25, 2021
When a 12-year-old boy, who’s been hired to supervise a moonshiner’s still, witnesses a man shoot and injure a Bureau of Prohibition agent at the start of Montgomery’s provocative, if flawed, third novel set in 1920s Kinship, Ohio (after 2020’s The Hollows), Sheriff Lily Ross investigates. Meanwhile, Fiona Vogel returns to her aunt and uncle’s farm in Kinship with her powerful bootlegger husband, George, and several of his yes-men, including Lily’s estranged brother-in-law, Luther Ross. To Lily’s surprise, Luther visits her office and presents himself as a Prohibition agent. While Lily questions Luther’s true motives, Luther warns her of George’s potential plans to bring his bootlegging business to the farm. Though Lily can’t raid the farm due to a lack of evidence, Fiona sends her a tip that George’s alcohol could have been swapped with toxic wood alcohol. When Luther’s badly beaten body is found with a snakebite wound and the coroner insists the snakebite killed Luther, Lily senses that something doesn’t add up. Richly fleshed-out characters compensate only in part for a surfeit of repetitive backstory. Fans of historical mysteries featuring strong female leads may be satisfied. Agent: Elisabeth Weed, Book Group.

February 15, 2021
Bronwyn County, Ohio, 1927: when a few sips of moonshine leave young Jeb Rankline comatose, Sheriff Lily Ross is shocked to learn the shine came from the still of her close friend Marvena Whitcomb. Despite her friendship with Marvena, Lilly must discover how the boy was poisoned, especially now that the feds are pushing Prohibition enforcement. Lily discovers unlikely coincidences: Luther Ross (the former mine owner responsible for her husband's death) has slunk back into town, and somewhere in her county, a missing revenue agent could be in grave danger. Luther, it turns out, is helping ruthless businessman George Vogel turn his wife's family farm into a distribution center for a tonic he's peddling. When Vogel's wife, Fiona, every bit the survivor, learns that Vogel's business plan includes murder, she unleashes a campaign of manipulations to keep herself and her unborn baby safe. Like Sharyn McCrumb's and Julia Keller's thrillers, this third Lily Ross tale (following The Hollows, 2020) is a fine example of Appalachian storytelling, thoughtfully portraying characters at the intersections of kinship, poverty, power, and survival.

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Starred review from January 15, 2021
Montgomery continues her saga of strong Ohio women facing daunting obstacles. Kinship Sheriff Lily Ross first inherited her job from her murdered husband, then won a term on her own. Her bereavement led her to friendships with other strong women. Now that Prohibition is splitting the country, Lily's dismayed that her friend Marvena Whitcomb Sacovech has gone back to making moonshine in order to pay for medical help for her daughter, who's severely afflicted with asthma. Young Zebediah Harkin's glimpse of a revenuer being shot near Marvena's still is the first in a chain of events that will lead Lily back to the men who betrayed her husband. George Vogel, meanwhile, has a respectable business selling tonic, but he aims to make a fortune in illegal alcohol, and the road to success runs through the secluded farm of his wife Fiona's aunt. Fiona has come to hate her cruel husband, who has plenty of enemies and is constantly guarded by two old friends who despise her. Her pregnancy softens George just enough for her to plot a way to get her aunt's farm put in her name. Lily is forced to work with a revenue agent she doesn't trust, but she gets support from Benjamin Russo, an outside mining consultant who threatens to melt her heart. At length Fiona finds a way to work with Lily in hope of getting George arrested, and Lily works her way through past hurts and present problems to solve a thorny series of crimes. A beautifully written, finely crafted, character-based mystery that uses historical detail to enhance a powerful story.

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