A group of girls finds a severed hand in a creek bed in
rural western Kansas. Sheriff Billy Spire’s investigation uncovers right-wing
extremism and government corruption. Spire’s painful past and the lessons he’s
learned from it and from those that saved him lead him to see that things are
far from
simple.
Spire, from a dirt poor and abusive family, was sold by his
parents to a benevolent banker and his wife for the price of a repossessed station
wagon when Billy was in high school. Muscular, tough, and violent, he joins the
military and serves for 20 years as an MP. On the advice of his foster father,
he goes home to Kansas to run for sheriff. He learns to temper his violence and
that “the first pulse to take is your own.”
His foster brother inherits the bank, wins a seat in the
state senate, and continues his father’s legacy of working for the benefit of
his hometown, never letting ethics or honesty get in his way. He is smart,
shrewd, kind to his wife, and tender with his mistress.
Even the town ne’er-do-well, who is the victim Russ Haycock,
is complex. He, like the sheriff, grows up poor in a large, dysfunctional family.
He joins the army and returns with a Vietnamese wife. He is drawn to the racist
conspiracy-theory-loving Posse Comitatus although his own wife is Asian. Violent
by nature, Haycock is tender and possessive with his wife.
The harsh western Kansas setting of dying towns, racial
conflicts, and corrupt officials makes survival a strong motivator for all of
the characters. They do their best with the little they have, in terms of
wealth, opportunity, and emotional security.
“The Illusion of Simple” presents readers with intimately
drawn characters struggling with complex situations and conflicts. Nothing in
the novel is simple but everything in it is real. The story is difficult to watch
but impossible to look away from.
