What Marvena doesn’t know about the backwoods isn’t worth talking about.

Then there’s Marvena, encountered in the first novel, union worker, still owner, and force of nature. Lily is somewhat dismissive of Hildy, thinking her soft and simply awaiting marriage to the staid Merle, owner of the town grocery store. Hildy, Lily’s friend since childhood, is the one Lily calls on to help with tasks at the jail. One of the strengths of both novels are the network of kin (her town is even called “Kinship”) and friends that Lily calls on and relies on to both help her get through the day taking care of her children – that’s often her mother, raising her own late on life child – to taking care of prisoners at the jail, to figuring out the deep connections in the backwoods hollows that to any outsider would be impenetrable. As Lily is called in to investigate, she of course wonders if the frail, shoeless old woman fell, or was pushed. The book opens with the wandering of an old woman down some railroad tracks, where she ultimately falls to her death. This is naturally a hindrance at times to Lily’s carrying out her duties. While the first novel concerned itself with the politics of mining, this novel is more of a straight mystery, which veers into the unfortunate territory of racism and because of the time period, an ever present and ingrained sexism. Montgomery brings to life the story of the first female sheriff, Lily Ross, in tiny Kinship, Ohio. The second novel in Jess Montgomery’s remarkable series set in a 1920’s Ohio mining town is every bit as memorable and vivid as the first, The Widows, which was far and away one of the best books of 2019.

The hollows by jess montgomery