SAINTS AT THE RIVER begins with its main issue, the issue at the center of the story. I think of it as prologue, although that’s not what Ron Rash calls it. As always, he writes it beautifully and it was promising, the way all prologues should be. It made me anxious to read more.

A girl drowns in the Tamassee River in a rural town in South Carolina. This becomes a big controversy, not only in that town but in the country because divers cannot get to her body without first damaging the riverbed. Doing so would violate conservation laws, and, say environmentalists, set a president for others to cause more damage when it is in their business interests.

But the girl's parents want to give their daughter a proper burial. So they need to get her body out of that river, and they find someone who claims to be able to do that.

But the townspeople know the river better than these “outsiders.” They know that trying to alter that river is flirting with danger.

One large newspaper covering this story sends its star reporter to that town, along with a photographer who coincidentally grew up there. They try not to take sides. But the reporter, Allen, recently lost his wife and daughter in a car accident so tends to sympathize with the girl’s parents. On the other hand, a few years ago the photographer, Maggie, was an environmentalist working alongside the protesters. But even she tends to sympathize with the girl’s parents. Maggie at least understands both sides of the issue.

Although townspeople warn of the danger of tampering with this fast–moving river and although doing so is against the law, a man is permitted to erect a temporary dam in hopes that divers will be better able to get to the girl’s body.

Then all hell breaks loose. And Maggie, who has been understanding both sides of the issue, has now earned the wrath of most of her old friends and neighbors and, especially, of her old lover.

SAINTS AT THE RIVER is Rash's second book. I am so glad I finally found it.