Burn What Will Burn

by C.B. McKenzie

Bob Reynolds doesn't recognize the body in the creek, but he does recognize the danger of it. He's a newcomer to town, not entirely welcome and not entirely on good footing with the sheriff. So far, he's kept his head down, mostly over the bar at the Crow's Nest. But he has other interests than drinking and spending his inheritance, including one that goes by the name Tammy Fay Smith and who may have caught the sheriff's eye as well.

Bob Reynolds would rather pretend he never saw the body, but when it disappears he begins to doubt what little he knew about this secretive town, one that seems to become more unwelcoming by the day. But he can't just forget the body, despite the advice he's given to do so, and despite the evidence to suggest that he might be disappearing along with it.

Following his acclaimed, Edgar-nominated debut, CB McKenzie's Burn What Will Burn will appeal to fans of such literary crime authors as Daniel Woodrell, Tom Franklin, Joe R. Lansdale, and Nic Pizzolatto.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Thriller Suspense

213 pages, Hardcover

First published June 21, 2016

About the author

Born in Texas, CB McKenzie has been a lifeguard, an haute couture model, carpenter, housepainter, waiter, farm hand, teacher and factory worker in a wide variety of locales around the world including Arkansas, Vermont, Hamburg, Miami, Milan, Tokyo and Tucson. He earned both an MFA and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona and was full-time faculty at Pima Community College. Though he currently teaches at City University of New York, he still keeps his pick-ups in Tucson and Texas.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Such a good ol' boy, The Dukes of Hazard theme song, kept running through my head as I read this one. Bob Reynolds, who has lost everyone he cared about, a failed poet, has moved into the old Duncan place in Rushing, Arkansas. No one has ever lived there but Duncans, and his neighbors are very unfriendly, Bob, wants to raise chickens and just be. Unfortunately this will prove impossible after he finds a body in Little Piney Creek.

Loved the language, very poetic, the atmosphere, dark and gritty. Sheriff Sam Baxter runs this town and consider Bob a hindrance, one he wants rid of. Hard to tell some of the good guys from the bad. Red neck county here and Bob is in over his head. One thing for sure, this is not the kind of Southern town you want to visit. Interesting storyline, fast paced read. Think Winter's Bone or Deliverance.

ARC from Netgalley.

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bob Reynolds lives out in the middle of nowhere with no phone service so when he comes across a body in the creek he drags it out of the water thinking of the trouble it's going to be to get a hold of the police. Bob's kept his head down in the little town he'd moved to trying to stay out of the trouble and a body showing up isn't exactly going to help him fit into the town.

As much as Bob would much rather just toss the body back into the creek and go about his business he makes every effort to get a hold of the sheriff. But when showing the man where he'd left the corpse the body has disappeared. Bob begins to question just what goes on in this little town he's now living in.

Burn What Will Burn is one of those reads that while it sounded completely engaging by the synopsis it ended up just being one that totally wasn't for me. The story got off to a rather slow start with our main character spending more time inspecting the body and complaining about having to call the law.

From there it really went downhill in my opinion, as if the overly descriptive inspection of the dead man in the beginning wasn't bad enough. There's just wasn't a character in the book that I cared for
in the entire story really. This small town is one that I definitely wouldn't find myself in their backwoods world. A bit of cringe worthy moments all throughout with some of the behavior in the book.

And on a side note, I would love if someone could count the times in this read that "Bob Reynolds" is said all throughout. I suppose I understand the idea of using full names in the small community or referring to someone as Mr. or Mrs. but there were conversations with Bob that the other person said his full name in every line, hate to see if it were made into a drinking game the amount of times it was in the story.

Overall, just not one for me I'm afraid. The mystery/thriller portion is slow developing and I didn't particularly care for the characters.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.wordpress....

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like Cormac McCarthy you'll like this book. It's a well written, grisly look at corruption in a small Arkansas town. Corruption touches everyone on some level, no matter how innocent they seem.

[Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Burn What Will Burn by C.B. McKenzie is one of those rustic novels of Americana that will have you sitting back at the end of the tale wondering just exactly what you've spent the last few hours reading. It has the brilliance of Cormac McCarthy with the depth of character that reminds you of some caricatures out of the Andy Griffith show. The sense of down home, uneducated, inbred, small town south bleeds through this tale and what at times is it's strongest charm, is also it's most powerful detraction.

Bob Reynolds has left his life behind, the shattered remains of what was left of it, and retired to this small Arkansas town to hide away from the world. Bob mainly keeps to himself, eating at the local restaurant and passing the remainder of his day at the Crow's Nest, the local bar. His closest neighbor passes their time breaking into to his home and throwing rocks at his car, but Bob doesn't really care. He just wants to spend what is left of his time drinking moonshine and wondering around the countryside. That is, until the day he walks along the creek near his home and sees the body floating by. He doesn't recognize the man, so it can't be a local. But then Bob isn't really a local either and he is never sure how the small Arkansas town feels about him. Bob reports the body to the local sheriff and when they go back out, they find it gone.

Now Bob Reynolds knows he has real problems. A missing body where he is the only witness. A checkered past of his own; his wife dying of a heroin overdose by drowning in a bathtub. The lone outsider in a very closed knit community. Now a dead body that has disappeared. Bob knows he is better off leaving this alone but he finds he can't. There are too many unanswered questions and in a town full of secrets, Bob Reynolds is not about to become another one.

McKenzie has written a terrific character driven tale of southern greed and immorality. How the darkest and most evil secrets are those that sit in plain sight. Bob Reynolds is a powerful example of a man who has lost everything but still looks for a reason to go on. Sitting on his porch, raising his chickens and drinking away his inheritance. He lets the locals do whatever they please. But a dead body floating in the creek is too much for even Bob to turn a blind eye to.

But it is also the characters that take away from the book as well. Their uniqueness is only showcased when placed next to a normal group of people. In this tale, there is no normal group of people. Even the town coroner, slash, local doctor whose homespun remedies and advice are a caricature of the old time southern gentlemen, seems to have a darker side to him. The sheriff who is also the main drug supplier and the local mechanic whose more lucrative trade seems to be prostitution. Eventually this carnival of characters overshadows that there is a mystery here. A dead body that disappears and a small town's past that haunts its inhabitants to this day.

As the tale unravels, so does the man who is Bob Reynolds. McKenzie has created a coup of sorts with this character in that he is not truly driving this tale. Instead, we are voyeurs in watching it unravel around him. His sole action being that he is not willing to turn away. He asks questions and investigates some, but mostly he is a bystander who just keeps getting in the way. In such, the story is very much a runaway car that he just can't seem to dodge. Over and over again.

I know I am being somewhat critical of this story but I cut my teeth on this genre of small town southern crime novels with Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell and it has to date, been my measuring stick for this kind of novel.

Burn What Will Burn is a good tale and well worth the reading.

[CL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast read. Bob Reynolds finds a body in the creek which he drags out. Then he goes in search of a phone to call the local police. When they arrive back at the creek no body is there. Now the local sheriff has told him to pretty much forget what he thought he saw but he cannot. Good read. I would like to thank the Publisher and Net Galley for the chance to read this ARC.

[Etienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ishhh that was bad. The story is just unoriginal from start to finish. The characters is blank, it had some moments here and there having interesting thoughts, but mostly nothing from him. But my biggest problem with this book was the writing style, so over-written, trying to add some styles in a weird way and using so much words and sentences just to say nothing, it was crazy. It’s something that I often read in French book, trying to overdo it, but in English, that much, I think it was a first! It also has a lot of dialog, too much in my opinion. It was another case of my going blindly into a book because the title catches my attention... One day I might learn and be more careful!

[Amy the book-bat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm thinking more like 1.5 stars, which is really generous considering I almost DNF'd on page 6. I really did not like the writing style at all. The author had a need to use 50-cent words when a 10-cent word would do. Also, the similes were somewhat ridiculous most of the time. It felt like he was trying too hard to make the book something more than what it was. The book needed a good editor... punctuation was a mess, especially with commas. Obviously, this was not the book for me.

I did like one of the similes, though: "The late-summer sky was was tilted fully at night, the gibbous moon inserting itself like a bookmark through a hazy, dark book of clouds."

[spooky johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was bad and CB McKenzie should feel bad for writing it.

[Josh Worden · Rating 2 out of 5]

Burn what will burn? Maybe what I will burn is this book itself.

JK it wasn't that bad, but I didn't love it.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very odd book. First, I thought it would be a follow-up to Bad Country, which it is not. Second, the author does use quote marks in this book, which is very helpful and I greatly appreciated it.

The main character is odd. If I had to outline what happened, I could draw out what I am pretty sure happened (we are told different things by different people at different times) but there are some murky areas. Bob Reynolds is clearly a little OCD, and has severe problems with alcohol. As we get inside his head, we see him self-describing with great humility, his small hands, his small stature, his bald spot, his quirks, and there are many. On the other hand, he treats two local young men who have mental problems with great kindness; it's more the normal people he runs into problems with.

He is told, by many, each in his own way "You're not from around here" with the implication that he never will be, and there is a lot he doesn't know about how things are done in this very small town. Of course, he runs into trouble, and like your worst nightmare, he didn't even know what he was stepping into.

I like the way the author treats the quirks and deficiencies of humanity with compassion, and his harsh eye for the successful and hypocritical. At the end of this book, I still have questions. The book is a quick read but has a long tail.

[Don Gorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3). Country noir, country intrigue, child of knockemstiff, you can put this book in whatever category you want to but I bet you will have a hard time putting it down. A real twisty, turny rural America special, this story has more going on in 200 pages than you would ever expect. Insidious and incestuous, it was hard work trying to keep all the characters sorted out and in their proper places. A really fun little read.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

* tedious
* boring
* writing style had me going... why?
* didn't like a single character

For a smaller book it took me forever to read. Makes sense why it was like a buck on Bookoutlet.com, though to be fair I have come across some interesting cheap books on that website.. This wasn't one of them.. The cover intrigued me enough but sadly that's the only thing I liked about it. I like cringing because something is horrific and disturbing 😬 not because I can't get through a page without nodding off. If it had a different writing style but the same story it would have gotten at least another star.

😴😴😴😴😴😴😴😴😴

[Katie Bananas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I seriously couldn’t put this book down for how dark, grisly, and nasty it was. The descriptions of the book were definitely amazing to immerse me in the setting of a little town In Arkansas. For such a short book, it took forever to find out what was going on. For how short it was, I read it really fast. The events came rushing one after another! 3 stars for that one. 5 for the setting details.

[coty ☆ · Rating 1 out of 5]

This could've been a three-star book, if not for the homophobia and racism. McKenzie's writing isn't the best but definitely not the worst, his characters distinct with strong voices. There was a lot of potential, but ultimately little could come from it because McKenzie, like so many other authors, choose to include bigotry where there's no need for it.

[Lucretia Ruiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The charred remains of an elderly woman are discovered in a burned out gamekeepers cottage, hidden away in woodland to the west of Edinburgh. What is at first assumed to be a tragic accident begins to take on a more sinister aspect as Detective Inspector Tony McLean digs deeper.

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a mistake choice for me. And to think it sat on my TBR for over a year! Not worth the energy in my opinion.

So this is very gritty and definitely has the small, backward stereotypical town down in all the worst ways. I disliked the characters. All of them. Like, I would HATE to live there. So many of them made my skin crawl in a bad way. But maybe that was the point. I can think of a few guys that would like this possibly, in an A*-hole way.

Dry. Overly descriptive in the wrong parts. I could visualize everything clearly but honestly, it just dragged out.

[Summer Seeds · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another DNF. The similes and word choice made it impossible for me to get into this book. It was clunky and tedious. This is not well written.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure I've ever read a noir novel set in rural Alabama but I liked it, even if it was a little strange. Great characters and setting, good storytelling.

[Mark]

C.B. McKenzie's second published novel is actually the first one he wrote, and it's a short and highly engaging piece of work that nicely blows up the usual genre conventions. As the synopses by other GR reviewers will tell you, Bob Reynolds is a drunk and a failed poet who has socked away a bit of money and is wasting away his time in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Arkansas when he finds a body floating in his creek . . . . But this is less a mystery novel then a novel of mood, atmosphere, and character. (However, if you want a good whodunit, you'll certainly find it here.) BURN WHAT WILL BURN feels to me as if a 21st Century literary writer had taken a pass at updating a classic Fawcett Gold Medal noir PBO, but in a more authentic and respectful way then we usually see (when some literary writers try their hand at "genre fiction" it comes across as an exercise at slumming). This is a good story and a fast read, with a range of vividly drawn characters, and stylistically has dashes of Lansdale, Willeford, and Crumley while still being very much its own thing. Recommended.

[David Staggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Mr. McKenzie's first book because it won a Spur award and was nominated for an Edgar. I enjoyed Bad Country so much that I was eagerly anticipating getting my hands on Burn What Will Burn and I was not disappointed. I found Bob to be an endearing protagonist, a realistic one who lacked the sex appeal, bravado or machismo that so often fill the pages of books like this. The mystery was a good one, one that kept me trying to figure it out as I experienced the story with Bob.

I am a big fan of the way Mr. McKenzie writes, the poetry of his prose almost leaps off the page for me.

I wasn't as big of a fan of all of the supporting characters, I felt we really liked a strong number two in the book, while Malcolm was good, I think we could have had someone else for Bob to interact with that would have taken it to the full five star rating for me.

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book by CB McKenzie and a stand alone novel. It takes place in rural Arkansas and starts with the narrator, Randall Robert "Bob" Reynolds, finding a dead body in the creek near his house. More bodies start stacking up. This is more of a character/location driven novel than plot driven novel written in the style of a Daniel Woodrell book. These are poor, corrupt, drug and mentally challenged people with many difficulties. The book left me thinking about it, but I can't say as I necessarily enjoyed my time in this place and story. I preferred McKenzie's first book, Bad Country, which was a more traditional mystery with more likable characters.

[Mahala Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not at all my kind of book but McKenzie's coarse analysis of what makes life worth living - not much of anything according to Bob Reynolds, the protagonist, - caught my attention in a big way and held it to the convoluted ending that is anybody's guess (and that's the whole point) what the protagonist will do next. It's got a lot of "Wayward Pines" and "Twin Peaks" with a side of "Deliverance" psychological terror hinging it together. Good read.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the unreliable narrator genre has become too, too crowded for my taste, I still loved this book. I loved that CB McKenzie generated an entirely different protagonist and setting from his previous work. I loved the way his characters become more complex and revealing as the story progresses. I loved that the person investigating the crime isn't law enforcement or private eye.

Recommended for lovers of the modern writing style, whether or not you think you like mystery novels.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It can be hard to separate the book from the characters. There are a lot of thoroughly unlikable characters here, but described with a poetry that could almost give James Lee Burke a run for the money; and a protagonist that I still have not been able to make up my mind about.

[Zac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrible

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confusing at times but good..
Like his style..

[Brett Milam · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can't change death, and as a matter of fact, the dead don't need me. That's the operating principle — one might think of it as passive nihilism — of the central character in CB McKenzie's 2016 novel, *Burn What Will Burn.* I don't typically remark upon titles, but what a great title that is for a book. McKenzie's central character is Bob Reynods, who is likely suffering from OCD (he repeatedly washes his hands, counts everything) and is completely "burned away," as it were, by the trauma of his past. That being the death of his parents, his wife, and his unborn child. What's left is an OCD alcoholic, who still sometimes writes poems on napkins and gives out financial advice to other barflys, pining after a drug-addled woman who reminds him of his drug-addled wife, who then stumbles upon a body in a creek in a small town in 1984 Arkansas.

Given this context, I feel like Reynolds' reaction to stumbling upon a dead body is right within character. He tries to wish it away at first. He takes his time processing every little detail about the body and the environment in which it was found. He muses about how the body came to be there and came to be ... well, dead. And then, he thoroughly cleans himself up at his house, and then because he doesn't have a telephone, he heads to a local area where he encounters a young man, Malcolm, who is intellectually challenged and he sort of sidetracks Reynolds' business of calling the police (and that whole business takes effort because 9-1-1- isn't answering).

Probably the weirdest quirk about this whole town — not even the fact of how the Locals look at Reynolds, who does live there, as an outsider with inheritance money — is that everyone talks to everyone by repeatedly mentioning their name. So, for example, when someone is talking to Bob, they end every sentence with "Bob." I don't know if that was an intentional quirk, and I'm not sure what it would even mean, but it was noticeable! Maybe it just plays to how weird the townsfolk in this Arkansas town the book is set in are.

As I understand it, the woman Bob was pining after, Tammy Fay Smith, got tired of the dead man so ensured he went from a living man to a dead man with the help of a different mentally challenged man. They then killed Malcolm's drug-running, on-the-lamb father for witnessing it, and then the Sheriff's aged, mentally ill father stumbled across the body and cut its head off. Later, Bob kills the Sheriff's father in self-defense, and the Tammy Fay Smith's mentally challenged conspirator rapes and kills her. It's a bit of a mess, and what will burn will burn.

McKenzie's book, admittedly, isn't going to end up near my favorites of the year so far, but because of the strong title, the intriguing premise, and the attempt at Daniel Woodrell-like gothic country noir prose (not a slight, that's a tall task!), I'm left pondering the book, all the same. As I mentioned, I think McKenzie is asking us, through Reynolds, who we are and what our place in the world is after grief has burned what will burn.

[Dani Parmar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gritty 'noir' mystery indeed. This book left me satisfied intellectually and was most unlike other 'murder mystery' books I've read. It doesn't try to trick you, lacks an overall faculty of typical suspense, and doesn't once invite the reader inside to 'crack the case'. Things just happen. The story unfolds and foreshadowing is casually tossed aside. I oddly enjoyed this offbeat approach to storytelling and found it unassumingly refreshing.

It's written as though the main character is completely ambivalent about his regrettable situation, making this piece darkly humorous and satirically enjoyable. I laughed out loud in parts. The writing lent itself well to this unconventional style—descriptive, poetic, and full of made-up words—a surreal and sarcastic mess of descriptive noise that I thoroughly enjoyed.

"Three old pew women, though, wafted serenely back and forth throughout the extemporaneous sermon like loblollies flexing in a stiff breeze, unperturbed by the gale-force edicts directed at their fallen fellows, moved by the message but steady in themselves, settled over their deep righteous roots. Their giant bosoms cantilevered over enbibled laps, they fanned themselves and steam rose off their capacious, creped backsides like a powderly pungent, like a vaporized holy ghost."

If you're looking for a mystery chalked full of suspense and gripping plot twists, this book could leave you seriously disappointed. I really didn't expect much when I scooped it from the library and ended up enjoying its strange and 'loblollied' style.

[Cyndi B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, I am not a fan of "noir" novels; but I did like the way the book is well-written. When I completed the book, I had a "love-hate" relationship with it. I found that I was depressed from the reading of a dark book with dark characters. But the lasting impression from the reading left me with many questions that I am still trying to answer. I found links within the novel between the well-developed characters, yet which some questions still haven't been completely answered.

I think C.B. McKenzie did a great job in letting the reader determine the future for the characters, and in allowing the reader to make the connections between characters and plot. I did enjoy the sub-plots as well as the multi-findings toward resolution of the main plot of the novel. I do not like novels in which I can determine the ending long before the novel is completed; and I can happily say, McKenzie did a good job with keeping the reader guessing.

[dachs.what.she.read · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like a weird character study. I want to know more about Eleanor Oliphant 💗 and whiled Bob is not as endearing he is just as interesting. Bob has a lot of money but has exiled himself in a small seedy town due to his social ineptitude and disinterest in living with more than he needs. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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His OCD and anxiety lends an extra depth to the story which I appreciated as he pushed forward in bleak circumstances. He’s not a likely detective but he is a curious observer and the things he uncovers makes you really wonder what you don’t know about people. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

It took me a minute to warm up to Bob but the story started with a dead body so although Bob and I didn’t hit it off immediately the book was never one I paused on. It would make an amazing movie! ⠀