Literary

Elizabeth is in a rut. Her job isn’t so satisfying, and her marriage is on the rocks. Her every move seems to trigger a report by her husband, David, to their therapist. She feels ganged up on and adrift, which is bad enough. That descends into depression, which others believe is paranoia, when she finds her neighbor Patricia dead. Others say it’s suicide, but Elizabeth is sure it was murder and is determined to find the culprit. She has a willing sidekick in her sleuthing in Brianna, the assistant that David insists his wife take on to help out at home. Brianna, who is Black, is all too willing to be white Elizabeth’s new best friend, Watson to her Sherlock, and de facto therapist, given that Brianna has a strong motivation to insert herself into her employers’ upscale Memphis neighborhood: someone there called the cops on her son and they killed him. As the plot twists and turns, deceptions build, and though readers have the benefit of a birds’ eye view of the story, surprises are in store. This is reminiscent of Elizabeth Day’s Magpie, with its suburban setting and overcrowded marriage; the effects of gentrification and racism also loom large. For fans of Magpie Murders and novels that pack in the psychological drama.

Ruth Cornier is that rarity in fiction: a woman who had the chance to get out of the town that’s too small for her—in this case, Bottom Springs, Louisiana—but stayed. Growing up, everyone knew her as the preacher’s daughter, and nothing’s changed, except that she’s no longer under her father’s thumb. She is still, however, the subject of her downtrodden mother’s malice-filled plans to drag her back to the snake-handling church’s fold. What’s so objectionable about Ruth? It’s her firm friendship with Everett Duncan, her Heathcliff-reminiscent best friend, who’s returned to town after Ruth thought him gone for good. While Ever is the kind-hearted son of the mean town drunk, locals think he’s an apple from a no-good tree, and even suspect him of being the Low Man, a supernatural being who drags people into the swamp. When a skull is found in that same swamp, Ruth and Ever are thrown back into dark days of their youth while also desperately trying to find what really happened before Ever gets what locals think he deserves. As in Winstead’s In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, sharp writing, compelling dual timelines, and sympathetic characters will keep readers turning the pages.