and charged with his brother's murder. Ultimately, the novel ends with the identity of Robin's murderer remaining a mystery. Themes The book largely focuses on the life of Harriet and her friend Hely as they investigate the death of Harriet's brother Robin. Throughout the book, Harriet references Treasure Island, The Jungle Book, a book about the life of Robert Falcon Scott and a fairy tale about the King of Snakes while, in contrast, Hely often references From Russia with Love. Happiness and methods of coping with tragedy are explored throughout the book, mostly as character study. Many of the adults of the book, from Harriet's neglectful mother Charlotte, to Harriet's tough grandmother Edie view life from a defeated and cautious standpoint, respectively, in contrast with the more optimistic youthful outlook of the steadfast, brave Harriet and Hely. The outlaw brothers Farish Ratliff and Danny Ratliff, caught up in a world of drugs, seem miserable most the time. Few outwardly happy characters exist in the book besides Curtis Ratliff and the car salesman Roy Dial. Christianity is referenced throughout the book in the form of snake handling preachers, Baptists, and Mormonism, as well as an epigraph attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas. The social culture of Mississippi is featured throughout the book. Death is a theme explored in the book along with the cheating of death. For Harriet, this fascination stems from her brother Robin's murder before she was old enough to know him. But this is also shown via Harriet's interest in Houdini, references to Lazarus in the Baptist church after Robin dies, Harriet's reading about Robert Falcon Scott, Harriet's practicing holding her breath to imitate Houdini's underwater tricks, and at the climax of the story, Harriet's escape from Danny Ratliff by playing dead in the water tower by holding her breath. Danny Ratliff also escapes death in the water tower - not knowing how to swim - by jumping up from the bottom of the water tower tank for two days to grab breaths of air until he is discovered. The snake-handling preacher from Kentucky, Loyal Reese, represents a form of cheating death with his numerous boxes of venomous snakes and his preaching style. In unrelated incidents, Gum Ratliff and Eugene Ratliff are bitten by those venomous snakes and both survive. Farish Ratliff is said to have survived a gunshot wound to the head earlier in his life, while he