Review: Free Men by Katy Simpson Smith

Free Men

by Katy Simpson Smith

Publisher: Harper

Pages: 368

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  In 1788, three men converge in the southern woods of what is now Alabama. Cat, an emotionally scarred white man from South Carolina, is on the run after abandoning his home. Bob is a talkative black man fleeing slavery on a Pensacola sugar plantation, Istillicha, edged out of his Creek town’s leadership, is bound by honor to seek retribution.

In the few days they spend together, the makeshift trio commits a shocking murder that soon has the forces of the law bearing down upon them. Sent to pick up their trail, a probing French tracker named Le Clerc must decide which has a greater claim: swift justice, or his own curiosity about how three such disparate, desperate men could act in unison.

Kritters Thoughts:  Three men who are the most unlikely trio and the man that is tracking them as they are possibly the culprits to a murder of a group and theft of their things.  

This book was so interesting.  A black slave who is trying to find freedom, an Indian who is trying to seek revenge and a white man who is trying to run from events of his past come together and kill and steal from a pack of men and must run together from the man tracking them.  Each character including the tracker gets an opportunity to tell their back story and how they got to their current predicament.  I was so intrigued to find out not only the back story of each individual, but what led them to each other.  

There was one chapter that felt a little weird and I kind of understand why it was included, but I almost could have done without it - there is a chapter that takes us to the black slave's wife's point of view and catches up the reader on her story after he leaves.  It felt weird as the other character's didn't have their family have their own chapters.  

This is my second Katy Simpson Smith read and I will absolutely continue to read her books.  Free Men was definitely a read that made me slow down and enjoy each part, but I like it when a book makes me slow the pace.  


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.