THE WITCH'S ORCHARD, very promising authorial and series debut...with reservations

THE WITCH'S ORCHARD
ARCHER SULLIVAN
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A ninth generation Appalachian herself, Archer Sullivan brings the mountains of North Carolina to life in The Witch’s Orchard, a wonderfully atmospheric novel that introduces private investigator Annie Gore.

Former Air Force Special Investigator Annie Gore joined the military right after high school to escape the fraught homelife of her childhood. Now, she’s getting by as a private investigator and her latest case takes her to an Appalachian holler not unlike the one where she grew up.

Ten years ago, three little girls went missing from their tiny mountain town. While one was returned, the others were never seen again. After all this time without answers, the brother of one of the girls wants to hire an outsider, and he wants Annie. While she may not be from his town, she gets mountain towns. Mountain people. Driving back into the hills for a case this old—it might be a fool’s errand. But Annie needs to put money in the bank and she can’t turn down a case. Not even one that dredges up her own painful past.

In the shadow of the Blue Ridge, Annie begins to track the truth, navigating a decade’s worth of secrets, folklore of witches and crows, and a whole town that prefers to forget. But while the case may have been buried, echoes of the past linger. And Annie’s arrival stirs someone into action.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I about blew a gasket when applehead dolls and a Datsun 260Z appeared in the first fifteen pages. I was sure as sure can be that here was a five-star read.

But then. Let me explain.

I love stories about Appalachia that do't dump on the people like certain political scumbags did. I love strong and capable women investigators who don't have any truck with men telling 'em no, and bonus points to one with male friends not lovers. I love women who write books with accurate car names, and include their woman protagonists in this. All present and accounted for.

Then we play the mother card. We see crimes against little girls. Not, I stress, sexual ones, or this would've been Pearl-Ruled. The wrap-up was, as I feared, mother-related. I am not a Cult of Mother believer, my own mother was awful. Reading the resolution to this story was horrifying on multiple levels. I'm glad the Cult of Mother does not come out of the story unscathed, but it's extremely unpleasant to read another crimes-against-girl story no matter the resolution. I'd be frothingly furious if the girls in question had been treated as so many in crime fiction are.

Mystery and thriller writers need not to use girls-in-jeopardy as a plot engagement device. It is a cultural message that is toxic both to girls (who are, in adolescence, beginning to consume adult-oriented mystery series where their culturally pervasive role is victimhood) and to men, offering implicit targets in the existence of women as prey in entertainment every-damn-where.

So I love the book's execution, its solid plot-bones kept me reading, and the first-time author has an excellent touch with her side characters. I want this to be a series...I'll read Brimstone Hollow in 2026, if y'all want me to...I'm not able to overlook, however, the serious-to-me issue of using crimes against girls for entertainment value.

That is insupportable.