Down By The River

by Monte Schulz

When a sixteen-year-old girl is raped down by the river, she tells the police that tramps committed the crime, and the angry townspeople descend upon a camp of drifters seeking revenge. Reprint. NYT.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1991

Reviews

[Terry Cornell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me a while to get through. At times I really enjoyed it, at others it seemed a little boring. You have the cliche of the big city cop, leaving to become the chief of a small town's police force. A mysterious drifter, that even by the end of the book the reader doesn't know much about or his purpose. This book is not your typical crime-fiction book, murders and other mayhem, but seemingly not linked. As the plot moves along, the truth is slowly revealed. I loved the setting of a fictional Central California farming community, and the author's descriptions of the locale, the summer heat, and the small town. However, sometimes this seemed to go on without moving the plot along. I really enjoyed the plot line--it certainly had some twists and turns before the startling, dramatic conclusion. I won't divulge the specifics here and spoil the ending for potential readers, but certainly a unique experience I haven't seen in books I've read. Interesting note about the author--he's the son of Charles Schulz the cartoonist famous for 'Peanuts'.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

No, it's not about Chris Farley's character Matt Foley