Shattered Justice by Susan Furlong

Kensington, 304 pages, $26 (c2019)

“A Bone Gap Travellers Novel (Book 3)”

“Shattered Justice” is a tough, creatively written novel set in Tennessee, some of it in the colorfully named Bone Gap, “a remote and densely wooded holler about ten miles outside McCreary.” What clichés can we assume from this setting? Meth? Poverty? Abuse? Yes, but author Susan Furlong offers so much more.

Sheriff’s Deputy Brynn Callahan is a Traveller. Ironically, her community of Travellers doesn’t really travel so much, although mostly they do live in mobile homes, psychologically ready to fly at a moment's notice. Historically speaking, Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers are both nomadic, but they have separate cultures, language, and derivations. Susan Furlong often has a character refer to the Travellers as “Pavees.” Neither group usually is welcomed with open arms by settled communities. Travellers are wary of officials and none of them are interested in becoming representatives of the law in Furlong’s world. So that sets Brynn apart.

Brynn’s background is in the military. She was deployed to the unforgiving desert battleground of the Middle East. There she made a friend, Wilco, her corpse-sniffing dog. Then she and Wilco were injured by an IED. Both of them suffered physically: Wilco is deaf and lost a leg and Brynn is scarred. Both have nightmares and flashbacks. Wilco is Brynn’s comfort dog and Brynn is Wilco’s comfort person. They were allowed to stay together in civilian life. Some of Brynn’s story about being a Marine is told in pieces throughout the book. What is kept secret for a while is the trauma Brynn experienced in Bone Gap, and that incident and the repercussions ripple through the main storyline. Brynn is damaged goods. She became addicted to a few substances and has been trying to quit as the story opens.

Someone has hung freshly severed ears from a jungle gym in a children’s playground. Brynn recognizes the earring in one ear. It belongs to a male stripper who entertained Brynn’s friend’s hen party at a bar the night before. Urp. Much further along in the book, there’s a tongue to go with it, but it belongs, forensically speaking, to another person. Who is the second victim? What do the victims have in common? Does the whole mess involve the Traveller community? In answer to the last question, it would appear … maybe. One of Brynn’s friends from the hen party may have been the last person to see the victim alive. Brynn is called upon to be the Traveller liaison, a role she doesn’t relish since it may bring up skeletons from Brynn’s past. Sometimes there’s nothing like a fellow Traveller to know where the secrets are buried.

Family is a hard-to-define term in a place beset by drugs. Mothers die. Fathers die. Children die. Blood isn’t always the common denominator in a family, but it counts for a lot among the Travellers. Next in importance is the Traveller community. They live by their own laws, ones a lot harsher than in the outside world. Brynn still has a grandmother and cousin in the community, but she works among the outsiders. She has conflicting loyalties, but in the end, it is her own code that determines how she solves the case and how she chooses to live.

It was fascinating to see where Furlong took the story. She opened up her version of the Traveller community, as well as rural America and the world of traumatized vets. Well done!