Yet another thrilling installment of Kemper's Bouchercon adventures: 
 I haven't read a lot of Daniel Woodrell, but Winter's Bone and Woe to Live On* had impressed me so much that I made a point to attend a panel that he was on along with Megan Abbott and some others regarding crime stories set in isolated or closed communities. 
 * (Woe to Live On was turned into a pretty good movie by Ang Lee called Ride With the Devil. Parts of that movie were filmed around the small Kansas town I grew up in, and I told Mr. Woodrell that when he was signing my book. He shot the shit with me about the movie for several minutes, and I got so wrapped up in talking about it that I completely forgot to say anything about the movie version of Winter's Bone. You know, the one that was nominated for an Oscar for best picture..... Anyhow, like every author I met at Bouchercon, Mr. Woodrell was great with his fans and very interesting to listen to.) 
 On the panel, he told a funny story about how he had always prided himself that his fiction explored the basic humanity of even those who broke the law. Until he came home one time to find that he'd been robbed. (Probably by tweakers in the area.) Then he described how he ranted and raved about what he'd do to the people who'd done it once he got his shotgun loaded. At this point his wife gently reminded him about how he always said he tried to find the basic humanity in the worst criminals and that'd it'd probably be bad form to shoot someone for breaking into the house. 
 Daniel Woodrell grew up in the Ozarks and lives there today. If you've read or seen Winter's Bone, you've figured this out already, but the man knows his rednecks. Seriously, the man KNOWS rednecks. He absolutely nails that weird mix of self-sufficiency, pride, suspicion and willful ignorance that make up the Americanus Redneckius. Then he creates the stories that can be incredibly brutal, but that still have a kind of stark beauty to them. 
 My only complaint about this book is that it's too short. Each story is a quick stab to the heart that left me wanting more. And this guy can write openings like nobody else. Check out some of these first lines for the stories: 
 The Echo of Neighborly Bones - "Once Boshell killed his neighbor, he couldn't seem to quit killing him." 
 Florianne - "If they ever catch who took my daughter, I'll probably know him." 
 Night Stand - "Pelham came awake one night to find a naked man standing over his bed, growling." 
 And great opening lines is only a small part of what Daniel Woodrell does so well in this collection.