Bob Reynolds is a short, fat, wealthy, bald and aging man who has returned to Doker, Arkansas, the town where his great-great grandfather, the last of the Arkansas Reynolds was born. We aren't told why Bob has fled Texas but it may be that people around him tend to drown – in bathtubs, in liquor, in oatmeal. Bob's parents and wife are dead and Bob has nothing to occupy his time except tend his investments and so he has come to Doker to drink his life away in a physically and intellectually desolate place.

"Foreigners reach the limits of their Local Knowledge as allowed by Locals and that is why foreigners are called Foreign and locals are called Local" and despite grandpa Robert up in the graveyard, Bob remains an outsider in Doker. He is dumbfounded by the strange people around him, but up until the day he finds a dead man floating in the creek, Bob has been content to let alcohol and the occasional visit to the whores over behind the Piggly Wiggly in Danielles across the river, keep his mind soothed. The tranquilizers help too.

But one dead man suddenly become many dead people and Bob is in the middle. He has no idea what is going on but he knows that he is being set up as the fall guy should one ever be needed.

This book grew on me as I read it. In the beginning I thought it was kind of stupid and I almost stopped, but suddenly I realized that there was a lot going on and that I didn’t really understand it any better than Bob because things were being handled in a local way. I am an Outsider in this Arkansas world too, and Bob and I were getting all the knowledge that Outsider is allowed.

I received a review copy of "Burn What Will Burn" by C.B. McKenzie (St. Martin's Press) through NetGalley.com. ( )

3.5 Such a good ol' boy, The Dukes of Hazard theme song, kept running through my head as I read this one. Bob Reynolds, who has lost everyone he cared about, a failed poet, has moved into the old Duncan place in Rushing, Arkansas. No one has ever lived there but Duncan, and his neighbors are very unfriendly, Bob, wants to raise chickens and just be. Unfortunately this will prove impossible after he finds a body in Little Piney Creek.

Loved the language, very poetic, the atmosphere, dark and gritty. Sheriff Sam Baxter runs this town and consider Bob a hindrance, one he wants rid of. Hard to tell some of the good guys from the bad. Red neck county here and Bob is in over his head. One thing for sure, this is not the kind of Southern town you want to visit. Interesting storyline, fast paced read. Think Winter's Bone or Deliverance.

ARC from Netgalley. ( )