Three women. A small, isolated town. A decades old mystery.
1933. Cornelia Stover is not the kind of woman the menfolk of Boldville, New Mexico, expect her to be. A widow, she ought to be taking care of her house and her daughter. Instead, she's meddling with things that should not concern her.
1970. 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, her car runs out of gas and she finds herself in Boldville, a sleepy desert town in the foothills of the Gila Mountains.
Meanwhile a young hippie, Glitter, is struggling to realise her plan for a commune. She thought a life of free love, away from the perils of consumerism, would bring her happiness. But things haven't quite turned out the way she had expected.
Soon, Joanna and Glitter encounter a shocking modern-day crime and find themselves caught up in a decades-old mystery - the unexplained disappearance of Glitter's grandmother Cornelia . . .
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.
1933. Cornelia Stover is not the kind of woman the menfolk of Boldville, New Mexico, expect her to be. A widow, she ought to be taking care of her house and her daughter. Instead, she's meddling with things that should not concern her.
1970. 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, her car runs out of gas and she finds herself in Boldville, a sleepy desert town in the foothills of the Gila Mountains.
Meanwhile a young hippie, Glitter, is struggling to realise her plan for a commune. She thought a life of free love, away from the perils of consumerism, would bring her happiness. But things haven't quite turned out the way she had expected.
Soon, Joanna and Glitter encounter a shocking modern-day crime and find themselves caught up in a decades-old mystery - the unexplained disappearance of Glitter's grandmother Cornelia . . .
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's debut, The Long, Long Afternoon, was an atmospheric crime story set in 1950s American suburbia. In this second outing, she returns to the theme of the American dream souring . . . Vesper is immensely readable on the three women's different lives, and the constraints put upon them by society. Glitter is particularly well drawn; the idea of free love is abused by the men around her, yet she persists in her belief in hippy ideals. Sunday Times