First published 1978
Gavin Stevens understands the dark currents that run beneath small town Mississippi life. As violence erupts across Yoknapatawpha County, Stevens applies his keen intellect to unravel six separate cases. Each crime reveals the complex web of relationships, old grudges, and hidden motives that bind the community together. Stevens must navigate family secrets, local politics, and his own assumptions about human nature as he pursues the truth. The cases test not only his detective skills but his understanding of the people he has known all his life. In a place where everyone knows everyone else's business, the most dangerous secrets hide in plain sight. Stevens discovers that solving crimes requires more than logic when the perpetrators and victims are neighbors, friends, and family members whose lives intersect in ways both obvious and unexpected.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, crime, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: small-town, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi
Period: 20th-century
247 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Vintage