cover image The Other Shoe

The Other Shoe

Matt Pavelich. Counterpoint, $16.95 trade paper (334p) ISBN 978-1-58243-795-8

Pavelich’s haunting, beautifully observed second novel opens with Calvin Teague, an Iowan drifter, at the mercy of the harsh elements of the Montana open road. Teague is discovered exhausted, dehydrated, and missing a shoe by Karen Brusett, who takes him to her remote trailer, where the two get close. But when Teague winds up bludgeoned to death, possibly with a cane belonging to Karen’s arthritic husband, it stirs up all kinds of suspicion and unrest in small-town Montana, the novel’s evocatively desolate backdrop. As Pavelich unfurls his characters’ histories, the plot oscillates between alternating perspectives in a clever crime drama. Karen’s husband, now the prime suspect, is enigmatic in his refusal to speak about the murder, while public defender Giselle Meany works diligently to prove his innocence. Testimony from a diner waitress, a lack of physical evidence, and a nail biting courtroom sequence pales in comparison, however, to the harrowing final pages. Though Pavelich’s pacing could at times use a shot of espresso, this second novel even surpasses the allure and charm of his first, 2005’s Our Savage. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (Mar.)