A few unnecessary characters, too much telling, unbelievable, and it drags. ( )

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---

At dawn, when the sun's up ove rthe mountains and it hits the far edges of twon at the right angle, the pink caliche on the bluffs burns crimson and everytign runs red. Murfee alwasy wakes up bloody. The dead are her secrets...The missing are her ghosts.

I know who Deputy Cherry found out at Indian Bluffs, and so does my father.

My mother...his missing wife.

WHAT'S THE FAR EMPTY ABOUT?
This is so hard to sum up in a few paragraphs. Murfee is a small town in Texas near the southern border—the area around Murfee is even less populated. There are farms, ranches, and a lot of uninhabited land—very close to the border—a great place for smugglers (of people and substances) to ply their trade.

We open on one of the ranches that's used as a crossing point. The owner has discovered a body on the land and newish Deputy Chris Cherry goes to look at the scene. Any other deputy would do what the rancher wants and write this off as another dead Mexican*—but Chris wants to do it right. And as he's careful about his business, he notices something that compels him to dig in and really investigate the circumstances around the death—and the identity of the victim.

* Actually, it'd be a slur, but let's keep this civil. I'm not sure I read many terms for minorities in this book that weren't racist slurs. Thankfully, the characters that are on the admirable side of things (not necessarily "good guys") don't use that kind of language.

Actually, that's incorrect—we start with the Sheriff's seventeen-year-old son, Caleb, talking about the men that his father has killed (that Sheriff Ross—aka "Judge"—is willing to talk about in public, anyway), the women he married and the reasons they're no longer around. Up to a year ago when Caleb's mother left town—or so the official story is—Caleb says he knows his father killed her.

"The Judge" is the most powerful man in this part of Texas—he doesn't enforce the law, he is the law, in just about every sense of the word. He's what Walt Longmire and Quinn Colson could be with a lot more ambition—and an utter lack of morality. He sleeps with who he wants to, takes what he wants to—and, presumably, kills who he wants to. And the people who keep electing him love him, he's their hero. He's really one of the more despicable characters I've read this year.

So we have Caleb trying to find out what happened to his mom, Chris trying to figure out how this corpse ended up buried on the ranch, Sherrif Ross up to all sorts of things—and a few other residents of Murfee up to things full of secrets and lies. Too many threads are interwoven to do a decent job of talking about them here—but it's safe to say that because of what Caleb and Chris are up to, there's a chance that this intricate web could start to fall apart.

A chance.

THE EXCEPTION
We learn so much about every major character—their backstory, the secret lives they live, the lies they tell the world (and, in some cases, themselves)...with one exception—Melissa, Deputy Cherry's girlfriend.

We get a hint about her past—just the barest of hints—and we know a lot about her life with Chris—before and after Murfee. But that's all. Just a hint? It drives me crazy that I could write a page or more on the backstory of every other major character, and I can't about her. She's largely a mystery.

And the part that isn't being driven crazy about that loves it. She's shrouded in shadows, and someone in this town needs to stay that way.

SERIES PREMIER VS. STAND-ALONE
I knew this was the first novel in a series, but it never felt like it. I kept thinking that this was a stand-alone. It was only in the last twenty pages that I could see how it could continue.

I have to wonder—did Scott's publisher say, "We like this and would like to buy it from you—but we're going to need this to be a series, add something to the end, okay?" Because those twenty pages don't need to be there—I'm glad they were, it was easier to move past the darkness that characterized the 426 pages before because of those last twenty.

But I'm not sure it's a better novel because of them.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE FAR EMPTY?
This book deserves kudos for the atmospheric writing—you feel the emptiness of the geography. It also draws on the legends (and history) about Texas Lawmen and Criminals—placing these events squarely in that vein. It's hard to walk away from this book thinking that any part of Texas could possibly be different from Murfee.

I spent a lot of the novel thinking "This is almost too noir, I need someone I can believe in, someone who seems to care about the law, morality, simple decency." I knew from the first chapter on that it was brilliantly written—Scott's voice, style, and ability shone throughout the novel.

But, man...it was so bleak.

Caleb and Chris, sure, did care about justice, what's right, and so on—but their efforts seemed so Quixotic that it was almost painful to watch these two and their futile quests.

I don't know if the novel eased up on that eventually, if Scott's writing won me over, or if I eventually grew numb to it all. But at some point, I bought into it—I needed to know what was happening and started to care about many of these characters.

When I get to the sequels, I might change my opinion of the book as a whole—but on the whole, it didn't work for me as much as I wanted it to. It wouldn't surprise me if by the end of book two, I'm a rabid fan of this series, but for the time being I'm unable to think of it as more than "pretty good."

I do recommend The Far Empty, Scott's a guy to keep your eye on. Just don't go into this thinking it's a fun adventure. ( )

This is a noir western mystery thriller in modern times. West Texas is the setting, small town. I found all characters but maybe one fully fleshed out and the history and its current entanglement with present time well plotted. The narrator was excellent and well suited to the material. Recommended. ( )

Modern Texas Noir
Review of the G.P. Putnam's Sons paperback edition (2018) of the original hardcover (2016)

J. Todd Scott was one of the authors in the recent anthology Both Sides: Stories From the Border (2020) whose short story impressed me enough to start seeking out his other books. A short story isn't the same as a novel of course and the constant movement of the cartel spotter chasers in Waw Kiwuluk contrasts with the much slower paced character focussed noir-lit of The Far Empty.

The villains are pretty much known from the get-go in the novel and the multiple POVs seem to drag this along more to establish background (it is the 1st book of a trilogy) and create atmosphere. The writing itself is excellent though, you just may start getting impatient while waiting for the inevitable resolution.

Trivia and Link
I had never heard of Valentine, Texas (which is a nearby location to The Far Empty's fictional town of Murfee) before this book and my recently read Valentine (2020) by Elizabeth Wetmore. Now I've read about it in two books almost back to back. Wetmore's was also dark in parts and used a multiple POV (not my favourite style generally) but was more uplifting in the end. ( )

I had. This book in the ever present ever growing to be read shelf, and finally go around to it. I am kind of sorry I did. This was one of those books you don’t want to end. Some reviewers have complained that it is too drawn out, but I wish it had lasted longer. What an amazing storyteller, and what a fantastic story this was. To think this is the author’s first book is beyond belief.
The story takes place in a fictional town in West Texas, and involves crooked cops drug dealers, and lost, lonely displaced people trying to get by and do right.
I know some books will be losing their place in the “what to read next” since I already bought the author’s new book. ( )