{"id":4259,"date":"2025-09-30T11:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T11:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=4259"},"modified":"2025-09-30T11:34:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T11:34:00","slug":"starred-book-review-the-great-meadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=4259","title":{"rendered":"STARRED Book Review: The Great Meadows"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Great Meadows<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Christopher Walsh<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Literary Fiction \/ Mystery<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9798992867626<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 272 pages<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>A deeply spiritual story of two men on different paths meeting at a crossroads<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A man running from his past and a man hitchhiking toward his future intersect in rural Kentucky in The Great Meadows<\/em>, leading to the discovery of a decades-old mystery.<\/p>\n

Levi Motley returns to his native state of Kentucky, barreling down a highway in his pickup, hungover and heading toward his next destination because \u201cwho doesn\u2019t want the feeling of motion fueled by the aphrodisiac of hope?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When he sees a hitchhiker with a sign reading \u201cGethsemani,\u201d something inside tells him to turn around. His new passenger is Moussa Diab, a young man hitching a ride to the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani to discern God\u2019s purpose for his life.<\/p>\n

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Captivated by Moussa\u2019s impressive certainty that his journey is a quest, Levi drops him off at the monastery\u2014unaware that the next time he sees him, Moussa will be dead.<\/p>\n

Levi rolls into Bardstown, Kentucky to meet his college friend, Dominick, a reporter at the local paper. With the promise of freelance work, Levi chooses to rent a house and find a whale of a story for his new editor. He ranges around town, reporting on local festivals and personalities, when a police call takes him and Dom to a river bend close to the monastery. This is where Levi discovers the dead man is Moussa.<\/p>\n

When a mysterious investigator named Regina Sandoval shows up on his doorstep, asking Levi questions about his connection to Moussa, the novel kicks into high gear. Levi is a likable Lothario whose scruffy good looks get him into some trouble, but his nebulous connection to Moussa leads his journalistic instincts to investigate the investigator: after all, Moussa\u2019s death has been solved, with a man admitting to killing him. But something does not smell right, and Levi decides to help Moussa\u2019s mother by finding out what really happened to Moussa in the beautiful countryside of Kentucky that locals call \u201cThe Great Meadows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walsh spins a deep mystery in this novel, one that takes its time unraveling. Levi must negotiate a raft of barriers: from the suspicious Sandoval whose end game is unclear, to the wealthy and connected Westcott family whose patriarch, Conrad Westcott, is the founder of the Westcott Bourbon Company. As Levi pokes his nose around town, he finds disturbing clues about why Moussa came to the abbey and why anyone would want him dead. Along the way, he also wrestles with the ghosts of his past, including an older brother, Declan, housed at the Manchester Federal Correctional Institution nearby.<\/p>\n

Levi slowly learns that he is not only uncovering Moussa\u2019s quest, but his own. Will this rolling stone finally let go of the guilt he runs from and allow a little moss to grow?<\/p>\n

The answer is skillfully tied to not only Moussa, but also to a family secret from World War Two that only time will reveal. The story and the mystery are a slow burn, but the people and personalities Levi meets in town make this a delightful read with punchy dialogue and clever quips.<\/p>\n

Walsh writes with authenticity and obvious love for the \u201cgreat meadows\u201d and natural beauty of the Bluegrass State, with his precisely drawn characters embodying both the best and worst of a community steeped in its past. The spirituality of the story resonates throughout as Levi accepts that in finding out what happened to Moussa\u2014no matter how sad\u2014he will also find out what happened to him from their brief, consequential encounter along that highway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sadness comes from finding out that nothing turns out exactly as you had hoped it would be, and the gratitude comes from knowing it was worth the ride all the same.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Great Meadows<\/em> is a moving philosophical tale with the veneer of a small town murder mystery. Lyrical and gritty in turns, it\u2019ll leave you feeling hopeful for a return of its Odysseus-like protagonist who is just trying to find home\u2014for good this time.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Peggy Kurkowski\u2019s book review of The Great Meadows <\/em>by Christopher Walsh! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post STARRED Book Review: The Great Meadows<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Great Meadows by Christopher Walsh Genre: Literary Fiction \/ Mystery ISBN: 9798992867626 Print Length: 272 pages Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski A deeply spiritual story of two men on different paths meeting at a crossroads A man running from his past and a man hitchhiking toward his future intersect in rural Kentucky in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}