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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
In Mitch Goddard’s Beneath The Flame Azalea, Jeff returns to the western North Carolina trail years after his Appalachian Trail hike left him reeling from Beckham Sheridan’s unexplained death. During a storm cleanup led by Luna Kramer, Jeff finds a waterproof action camera buried under leaves near a stream, and the memory card shows a fisherman named Brett running through the woods from something he believes is a bear. The footage has no matching report and no body, so Jeff turns to Michael Anderson’s Southern Crime All the Time podcast for help. As callers connect Brett to stolen gear from an older missing man, Wampus Cat stories keep circling the same woods where another trail death still has not let Jeff go, as memory keeps pressing beside evidence.
Mitch Goddard’s Beneath The Flame Azalea is a well-executed Southern mystery, and Jeff is a protagonist we want to root for, especially when curiosity pushes him into grief he has been trying to leave behind. Goddard fleshes him out as someone decent before he is brave, running uphill to find Jimmy after the chainsaw accident because wounded volunteers need a medic. The trail setting is fantastic, from rain hammering a repair camp under the azaleas to the abandoned homestead where a hidden well changes the investigation. I love how the podcast structure lets folklore brush against testimony around one recovered camera. Ji-an is my favorite supporting character because her knowledge of plants and trail life gives every scene with Jeff a natural ease. Well written and atmospheric, readers who enjoy Southern mysteries with contemporary sleuthing in old folklore will adore this book.
