They hate me down there, in Boldville. I can read it in their eyes, smell it on their noxious breaths. That dreaded little town hates everything about me: not just my personality and form, the clothes I wear, but the way I think. The things that I know.
Cornelia Stover is headstrong and business-minded – not the kind of woman the men of Boldville, New Mexico, expect her to be. Then she stumbles upon a secret hidden out in the hills . . .
Decades later, Joanna Riley, a former cop, packs up her car in the middle of the night and drives west, fleeing an abusive marriage and a life she can no longer bear. Eventually, she runs out of gas and finds herself in Boldville, a sleepy desert town in the foothills of the Gila Mountains. Joanna was looking for somewhere to retreat, to hide, but something is off about this place. In a commune on the outskirts a young man has been found dead and Joanna knows a cover up when she sees it.
Soon, she and Glitter, a young, disaffected hippie, find themselves caught up in a dark mystery that goes to the very heart of Boldville, where for too long people have kept their eyes shut and turned their heads away. A mystery that leads them all the way back to the unexplained disappearance of Glitter’s grandmother Cornelia forty years before . . .
A captivating, atmospheric new novel from the lauded author of The Long, Long Afternoon, This Wild Wild Country simmers with secrets, lies and terrible betrayal, unravelling the lives of three women at the mercy of their times.
Inga Vesper is an author you need in your life if you haven’t already read her! You’re in for a treat as she has two brilliant books for you to get stuck into. I fell in love with Inga’s writing after The Long, Long Afternoon and I remain as such following This Wild, Wild Country!
I wouldn’t normally be drawn to a story set in such a Wild West style setting but oh I am so happy that I gave it a go. This is a character driven novel with a mystery. The setting is vividly described and I had a great sense of where the action was happening and how it might appear. It was an immersive read which caught my attention from the first chapter.
The main characters are all complex and have a great backstory. Joanna is fleeing an abusive relationship and I felt so anxious each time she appeared. I loved her tenacity and her interest in following up on her hunches. It would have been really easy for her to just hide away, recover and slink off into obscurity. Glitter, a would be hippy, is caught in a bad situation. She’s rebelling but seems to have flickers of doubt and unease. Cornelia is way ahead of her time, running a business as a woman way back in the 1930s, she encounters endless difficulty but ploughs on regardless.
The threads of each story wind around each other in a beautifully plotted fashion. I found it fascinating and hard to put down. The conclusion is satisfying, although sad when a great book has come to the final page! Check it out!
About Inga Vesper: Inga Vesper is a journalist and editor. She moved to the UK from Germany to work as a carer, before the urge to write and explore brought her to journalism. As a reporter, she covered the coroner’s court and was able to observe how family, neighbours and police react to a suspicious death. Inga has worked in Syria and Tanzania, but now lives in Glasgow, because there’s no better way to find a good story than eavesdropping on the chatter in a Scottish cafe on a rainy day.
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