Killing Mr. Watson (1990) by Peter Matthiessen

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Killing Mr. Watson (1990)

by Peter Matthiessen

Chokoloskee Bay, Florida

Florida: 8/21

    Killing Mr. Watson was the first of a three-volume series retelling the life of real-life villain Edward "Bloody" Watson, who looms over the history of this remote outpost of swampland Florida like a giant. The three volumes were eventually republished in a single volume called Shadow Country in 2008, and that book won the National Book Award for Fiction.  I checked out the Audiobook edition from the library- Killing Mr. Watson takes the form of an oral history, with 12 voices telling different versions of the same events, starting out with the more-or-less cold-blooded murder of Watson at the hands of a loosely organized "posse" of his neighbors.  Matthiessen, award-winning author that he is, knows how to handle both the human and natural elements- the swampy everglades being almost an equal attraction of the tale.