“A Trip of Goats,” the novel by our fellow blogger and real-life buddy, Kim Crawford (a/k/a “Velociman”), is a trip that should be taken by anyone who enjoys a compelling story, full of local color and very colorful characters.

The journey of twelve-year old Jubal Lee Jackson (“They call me ‘Jule’”) takes us through rural Georgia in the sixties and includes places that I doubt are pitched by the state travel bureau. While the geography and raw culture of those places and of that time may be unfamiliar to many, the questions for which young Jule sought answers are not.

I was most taken with the cast of memorable characters that, in most cases, defy a good-guy, bad-guy dichotomy. They range from Jule’s father, the “Senator,” who is a perfect mixture of Darth Vader, W.C. Fields and a pinch of Algonquin J. Calhoun (in whiteface) to the Futch Brothers, who are at once hilarious, profoundly stupid and rotten to the core.

I eagerly turned the pages to see what calamities would next befall young Jule and those who are hot on his trail.

Thank you, Mr. Crawford, for a great read.