Review: Silence Among the Driftwood

From the back cover:

On the coast of Georgia, earth and water wage an old and quiet war. The marsh creeps ever closer to the live oaks that stand guard at the edge of the world.

The tide keeps what it’s given.

Until one June morning,

it gives back the body of Jannie Hope.

A tale of murder, mystery, and the magic a forgotten place holds.

Spoiler Free Review

Author N. M. Knight enters the publishing market with his debut novel, Silence Among the Driftwood, a murder mystery set in the Golden Isles region of coastal Georgia. The pacing is ideal, dropping a sudden murder of the town's local sweetheart into a slow turmoil that fights a quiet war hidden among the marsh.

First heads up if you're considering your purchase: the timeline of events in the book is nonlinear with a variety of focal point characters. This is to the novel's benefit, since the murder mystery is built on the reader becoming increasingly more aware of events in past, present, and future with elements and evidence privy to certain characters. Every slow reveal further raises the tension, creates suspicion, and leaves the reader eager to find out the who-'s the why-'s and the how-'s of the great big mysterious -dunnit that claimed the life of Jannie Hope.

Don't let the nonlinear formatting deter you if you're not a fan of this writing style. Chapters come with subheadings that feature the name of the character's point of view, the location, and the time that the chapter takes place, constantly re-anchoring the reader for the next piece of the puzzle that inches closer to the climactic resolution. For example, the second chapter begins like so:

Among the Driftwood

Detective Quinn — Jekyll Island, June 1994

Key characters in the story involve the protagonist, Fin Thigpen, a teenager who grew up on the poorer side of the town after moving into the county from his hometown of Valdosta. He meets his friends Beau, a quiet kid from an abusive home, and Mark, a young boy who teaches him how to catch crabs, fish, and adopt the marshland as his playground.

Other prominent characters are the previously mentioned Jannie Hope, the girl featured on the cover, who is truly "The Marsh's Daughter" due to her connection with the wildlife—she volunteers at the Sea Turtle Center, works her father's marina, and is just at home knee deep in the marsh as she dancing around bonfires at a beach party.

Sprinkle in a seedy, jealous prick of a ne'er-do-well who never knew the meaning of the word "no," an attorney who ceases to relent at her uphill battle, and an immortal old man, and you have the ingredients for a tale that keeps the pages turning at the end of every chapter.

Yes, an immortal old man. Or something like that?

Magical realism has a large part of Silence Among the Driftwood. Within the first chapter, young Fin is given a warning by an old man who gives the child an acorn. He warns the boy, "Once she takes root, her canopy will hold time off of you, same as this one did for me." The old man's stories are intermingled within the plot points of the primary story, each one leaning deeper and deeper into the Golden Isles' past history, sprinkling legends into the elements of truths, making the reader blur the lines between where history ends and fables begin.

As all good history should be.

Knight's prose is idyllic to the tone of the story—you read the novel feeling like you're standing there on the beach, at high tide, the surf spilling over your feet while the marsh waves at you—envelopes you—restrains you. Day in, day out. Week in, week out. Year in... Decade in... centuries upon centuries. The land is eternal, and the human experience erodes under the tide in all due time.

The author trusts the reader with his prose. Fin's childhood friend, Beau Hicks, suffers from an abusive home, but Knight scribes the details with just enough legitimacy to make you feel like you're hearing the locals say-but-not-say the truth that everyone in the town knows-but-doesn't-know. Knight doesn't need to spell it out in detail because the locals would never speak it out in detail. In small towns, gossip spreads like fire but doesn't burn bright enough to draw undue attention.

It was Beau who taught him the difference between a hard home and a dangerous one, without ever saying a word. Trailer walls are thin and the lots are close, and some nights the sounds that came across from the Hicks place weren't just shouting. They were a belt, sometimes worse [...] nobody discussed it. Fin's pa could tell. He'd just call across the yard, "Beau! I need an extra hand over here," and for an hour there'd be a place in the world where a boy could stand next to a grown man and not flinch.

Rumors, whispers, and silent nods among congregations fill the web of the small, quiet coastal town, and the text leans into this motif. Jannie Hope's unfortunate demise doesn't cause finger-pointing and outrage—that's too loud for a small town. That causes attention. The girl's death causes whispers, surreptitious glances, and conspiracies exchanged behind closed doors.

Those who play the game of blames know how to play it and keep their heads, whether it be a local plutocrat playing the long (quiet) game, or a girl warning, "don't ever take a drink that boy hands you" to another over the stall door in the ladies' restroom.

As a reader, you also become enamored with Jannie Hope. She's the one true focal point in the great mystery of the marshland, her moniker of "The Marsh's Daughter" prominently following every footstep. The environment itself is a living, breathing entity, each turn of the tide or ray of moonlight worthy of its own chapter. No other character is as true to herself as she is, and just like everyone else in the Golden Isles, your heart breaks when she leaves this world.

I read this book cover to cover in three days.

Silence Among the Driftwood is available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover formats. Available here.