“A fascinating story of unrequited love, bigotry, tragedy and mystery”“Breakheart Hill” was written by the master story teller, Thomas H. Cook. The novel is fictional literature in the mystery/love story genre. Mr. Cook has written a significant number of books, short stories and novels and has been nominated or won several literary prizes for his work. One of Cook’s most recent novels that have been reviewed at Amazon is “The Quest for Anna Klein”. “Breakheart Hill” is narrated in the first person by a main character of the story. The prose is variously complex, richly descriptive and poignantly presented. Character dialog is conventionally introduced in accordance with the person speaking.The story is told by the character of Ben Wade, a physician in the small town of Choctaw Alabama. It has been over 30 years since it all happened, when they were all still in high school. He first saw her when she was but a curly-haired little girl and he a little boy, she came hand in hand with her mother entering his father’s grocery store. Ben would be introduced to Kelli Troy again as a junior in high school, where he and Kelli were to be co-publishers of the school paper, the ‘Wildcat”. The relationship that grew between Ben and Kelli exploited a witlessness born of adolescence that haunts Ben now as he remembers that awful time in summer so long ago on Heartbreak Hill when Kelli was lost to him. This is a terrific story told by a master of story tellers. It is brimming with the joys and agonies replayed by adolescent participants, whose fierce friendships, loyalties and love beguiles their future in unexpected ways. It is a sad tale too, as it will draw the reader into his own reminiscence of an earlier time, a memory of innocence lost to a young age and the horrible consequences that bigotry held for those smitten by it.I highly recommend this novel be added to your reading list and rate it “Memorable”.
Breakheart Hill, by Thomas H. Cook, A-plus. Narrated by George Guidall, produced by Recorded Books, downloaded from audible.com.Ben grows up in a small southern town in the early 1960’s. He feels confined as a teenager and can’t wait to leave the town. Then a new girl comes to town, Kelly. She and Ben co-edit the highschool paper. We see the ins and outs of highschool life for a whole year. Then Kelly is killed by a blow to her head. The sheriff believes that Ben knows more than he’s willing to tell. Kelly, who came from Baltimore, had a northerner’s view of the south and its treatment of, what in the ‘60’s were called “Negroes”. The sheriff isn’t sure if Kelly is killed by jealousy because she started going with a boy that another girl thought was hers, or if her political views and her willingness to write them in the school paper led to her death. Ben leaves, goes to medical school, and comes back to spend his life as the town doctor marrying another girl from his class. For 30 years the murder remains unsolved and the town festers with it. Now, Ben must tell the truth and reveal what really happened the night she died. This is the best Thomas H. Cook I have read so far, and I have liked every book by this author. I think this will probably make my best of the year list.
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It's virtually impossible to give this book the review it deserves without providing rampant spoilers. So I'll just say that I started the first few chapters believing (foolishly) that I knew where the story was headed, that I knew whodunnit and why. And I ended up reading the last chapter with my mouth hanging open, catching flies and not caring, because the truth was much more shocking, much more tragic, than I would ever have let myself believe. This is a truly great literary mystery. Written with poetical prose, it lyrically reveals people in both their most debased and noblest lights. Thomas H. Cook is now officially on my "must-read" list. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did!
—Misha Crews
I had to remove myself for a while after reading this story to decide whether or not I liked it. It was an odd sensation and one I couldn't convey to my husband as I told him it wasn't for him mere seconds after closing its pages for the final time. That suggestion still stands, it's definitely not one for him, but it's one now, many hours on, that I've found myself saying 'ok I understand why Cook went the way he did now'. I've lived for 298 pages inside the head of a man who's been carrying an horrific burden on his shoulders for 30 years - as frustrating as it would be to be Dr Ben Wade, I, as a reader, found myself equally as frustrated at times. But what a story! And what a twist! And what a crime. This is a story that grows on you hours after you've read it.
—Georgina Hynd
Well, I definitely liked the last few pages. What I didn't like was the plodding, repetitive first 18 chapters. Because I'm stubborn, I kept reading because others liked the book and I didn't want to let it get the best of me! Some of the writing was good, but some of the characters and their actions and thoughts did not not ring true to me for 16 and 17 year olds. In chapter 17 a few of the characters attend a children's play and the author writes, "The play was a modern contrivance, fractured and remote, and all of us were weary by the time it ended." Funny, that's just how I felt about this book.
—Beth Crawford
