The Revelators is the continuation of The Shameless, which I read and reviewed here a month or so ago. Quinn Colson is still recovering from being shot down at the end of The Shameless. He has been 'temporarily' replaced as Sheriff of Tibbehah County while investigations continue into who ordered the hit. Meanwhile J K Vardaman has been elected governor despite or maybe on account of his close association with the Watchmen militia. The Watchmen are rearming and looking for contacts; fortunately Donnie Varner, schoolfriend of Quinn Colson and Boom Kimbaugh, and teenage crush of Quinn's sister Caddy, is fresh out of jail and looking for work. Fannie Hathcock is expanding her sex and smuggling empire, seeking to expand her standing with the Syndicate, and itching for revenge of the frame hammer type on those who ordered the hit on her lover. In the deep background federal agencies are quietly trying to get on top of the various criminal and seditious enterprises that currently control the town of Jericho and surrounding Tibbehah County.
It's another utterly engrossing narrative with dozens of beautifully drawn three-dimensional characters, all of them with good and bad sides. The inciting incident is when Vardaman has the immigrant workforce at the local chicken factory rounded up. The adults are incarcerated, the kids left to fend for themselves. Naturally the kids are taken in at Caddy Colson's Christian refuge. The chicken factory is restaffed with inmates from the local for-profit prison. Not all the local Good Old Boys approve. Not all the local wheelers and dealers are in on the action.
I relished every minute of The Revelators. I cannot fathom why this series isn't higher profile.
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