This Wild, Wild Country by Inga Vesper Blog Tour

 I just loved The Long, Long Afternoon by Inga Vesper so when I was given the opportunity to join the blog tour for her latest novel This Wild, Wild Country, the answer was always going to be yes. 

The tag line for the book: 

Three women. An isolated town. A decades-old mystery.

How could I resist?

1933. Cornelia Stover is headstrong and business-minded - not the kind of woman the men of Boldville, New Mexico, expect her to be. Then she stumbles upon a secret hidden out in the hills . . .

1970. Decades later, 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, she runs out of gas and finds herself in Boldville, a sleepy desert town in the foothills of the Gila Mountains.

Joanna was looking for somewhere to retreat, to hide, but something is off about this place. In a commune on the outskirts a young man has been found dead and Joanna knows a cover up when she sees it. Soon, she and Glitter, a young, disaffected hippie, find themselves caught up in a dark mystery that goes to the very heart of Boldville, where for too long people have kept their eyes shut and turned their heads away. A mystery that leads them all the way back to the unexplained disappearance of Glitter's grandmother Cornelia forty years before . . .

This is a story told from three points of view.

Three women.

Each with their own story to tell.

All entwined together by various threads of their journeys.

We as the reader are taken on this journey with them. Travelling from past to present and back again as secrets are revealed and lies are turned into truths.

Murderous.

Atmospheric.

Vesper has a way of keeping the tension immensely high with every single turn of the page.

Every chapter bought certain things to light, but also bringing more betrayals. Each reveal had me open mouthed. I just didn't know which characters I could truly trust. And I liked this very much.

Guilty until proven innocent I guess you could say.

My favourite cast member has to be Glitter (Lauren), a hippie child, all about free love. Well she was a feisty one and for someone that didn't like to conform, she sure knew how to handle herself and really had her wits about her.

The author doesn't shy away from tough themes.

Talk of abuse, racism, drug taking to name a few. What is explored within this story isn't perhaps for the faint hearted but it is all written with honesty and care. 

What's shown within this book is that the best laid plans and good intentions can still end in heartache and death. 

The behaviours displayed by all the characters really made me think about how I would react if faced with similar situations. 

This Wild, Wild Country is extremely well plotted and brilliantly described. I could imagine all of the settings, the simmering heat of the deserted mountains and all with just the right amount of mystery and drama to provide the ultimate impact for the reader.

Just as good as her first novel, I cannot wait to see what Inga has to offer next.