by Barry Hannah
First published 2001
Man Mortimer arrives at Eagle Lake like a plague from the casinos. He resembles Conway Twitty but carries death instead of country songs. The killer has grown mean and sick, and he sets his sights on the lakeside Mississippi community with biblical fury. The young sheriff finds himself overwhelmed by Mortimer's crimes and distracted by his unlikely romance with a seventy-two-year-old widow. Only Max Raymond stands in the way of complete destruction. Raymond is a Christian saxophonist, weak in body but strong in faith. As Mortimer's crime spree escalates, the town faces a reckoning of violence, obsession, and sin. Bodies will fall and fires will burn before this gothic nightmare ends. Hannah returns after a decade away from novels to deliver a story about religion and brutality colliding in America's Deep South.
Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, gothic
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unlikely-hero
Setting: Eagle Lake, Mississippi
Period: 20th-century
336 pages · Paperback · Atlantic Books
Content warnings: graphic-violence, murder