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The Right Kind of Fool
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In the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Loyal Raines leaves home for a forbidden swim and discovers a murdered man beside the river near Beverly, West Virginia. Loyal is deaf, and the adults around him repeatedly mistake difficulty in communication for inability to observe. His knowledge draws his estranged father, Creed, into an investigation that exposes tensions running through the town.
The mystery is also a family reckoning. Creed withdrew when he learned his infant son could not hear, leaving Loyal’s mother to build a life around absence and disappointment. Solving the crime requires Creed to recognise Loyal’s intelligence and courage, but repairing the family demands more than a useful alliance. Set during the Great Depression, the novel combines coming-of-age fiction with a study of disability, paternal failure and the forms of prejudice that determine whose testimony is believed.
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