Red Stick One is a fun novel, which jumps back and forth between the present and the past. The characters and dialogue are great. As a person who's only visited the south in limited fashion, the book provides a very interesting look at some of the daily lives of people living in the alligator and snake infested swamps. Even the language itself is quite interesting. With their deep southern enunciation of every word, the reader has the feeling that they are there with the characters.

The story begins in Florida when Virgil's adopted father Tom Jay is found dead. Virgil, part Indian and a phenomenal tracker, leaves his job to hunt the man who killed the only father figure he'd ever known. The novel then goes back and forth between Virgil hunting his father's killer and flipping to the past where we as the readers get to see how Virgil and Tom Jay first met and how their relationship as father and son progressed.

This book contains great character development, mixed with action and interesting facts about the wild outdoors I found quite interesting.

 Although sometimes for a Midwesterner as myself, the strong southern accents are a little hard to read, this book was a gripping, well-written story. If and when Kenneth Kirkeby writes another novel, I'll be sure to read it!