Devilwood - by Tom Franklin (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A horrifying crime brings a long legacy of evil to light in this chilling Southern noir from the beloved, New York Times bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.

There's something wrong in those woods . . .

Deep in the woods of rural Alabama, Officer Wilbur "The Cow Man" Miller and his dog, Trixie, stumble upon a nightmare scene of chaos and carnage. Local outcast Shirley Dye lies dead on the floor of her home, her body mangled by the blood-crazed cats locked inside with her. But was her gruesome death a tragic accident, or something far more sinister?

Having grown up in the same woods, raised on legends of deadly black panthers and insidious demons, Miller is no stranger to the darkness that gathers beneath the trees. But as he gets pulled into the investigation, the boundaries between reality and myth blur: a feral white cat haunts the crime scene, delivering grotesque offerings to the dead woman's door, and inhuman screams echo in the darkest hours of the night, leaving Miller to wonder exactly what kind of monster Shirley faced.

Not all monsters are supernatural though: the Dye home has long been a refuge for shady characters including two desperate cousins on the run from the law, a local undertaker with secrets he's keeping close to his chest, and a charismatic preacher who warns that the Devil himself lurks just inside the tree line. Shirley's death isn't the first that cursed corner of the woods has seen, and as the mystery deepens, Miller must untangle the blood-soaked history of the land from the crimes of the present.

With lyrical storytelling and razor-sharp prose, Devilwood is a masterfully tense novel where the lines between human predator and supernatural evil blur, and where the sins of the past are never, ever buried deep enough.

Review Quotes

"What a gift to have a new Tom Franklin novel, and Devilwood would have been worth any wait. A fleet and sinister tale of an earnest lawman, busted marriages, charismatic pastors, wayward believers and the dark mysteries of the old woods, Devilwood offers up a world where everyone is haunted by the past, and the past's past. An unholy collision between Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King, it's utterly enthralling."

- Megan Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of The Turnout

"Devilwood by Tom Franklin is a haunting, stunningly poetic journey into the darkness at the edge of town that hides monsters both corporeal and metaphorical. A tour de force examination of myth and legend and the places we call home." - S.A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of King of Ashes

"Franklin has written not just a thriller of the first order, but a very fine novel, indeed." - Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls on Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

"Do you know that kind of novel that you can't stop reading? Just one more page, you tell yourself, just one more page. The kind that you can't stop thinking about all day, that you rush through all your other tasks to get back to? That is the kind of novel Tom Franklin has written. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is about love and guilt and death and redemption. It's about ordinary people like you and me, traveling through that extraordinary journey called life. I just love this book!" - Ann Hood, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Child

"Larry Ott and Silas '32' Jones are two of the most fully realized characters in recent fiction, and their story of a friendship lost and reclaimed is at the heart of this profound and profoundly moving novel. Lyrical, morally complex, superbly crafted, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter further validates Tom Franklin's status as one of America's best writers." - Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of The Caretaker

"Though not in essence a mystery or a thriller, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter possesses surprising twists and turns as Franklin reveals more background and history slowly, almost quietly. It's a beautifully written, haunting and at times acutely painful story about race, class and friendship set in a rural Southern town built on the memories of crimes and other abuses of past generations." - Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers

"[A] terrific new novel....If you're looking for a smart, thoughtful novel that sinks deep into a Southern hamlet of the American psyche, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is your next book." - Washington Post

"Racial prejudice, the tragedy of the assumption of guilt, newly discovered family connections and the closed world of a small Southern community are at the heart of this thriller, which can easily share shelf space with literary novels." - USA Today on Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

"This powerful story of redemption explores the toxic effects of prejudice. It is satisfying in a way that few crime novels are. The characters are complex, the situation intriguing and thoroughly believable, and the possibilities of mystery as a genre thoroughly exploited." - Boston Globe on Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

"A masterful performance, deftly rendered and deeply satisfying. For days on end, I woke with this story on my mind." - David Wroblewski, internationally bestselling author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle on Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

"A new novel from Tom Franklin is always a reason to get excited." - Dennis Lehane, internationally bestselling author of Small Mercies on The Tilted World

"The Tilted World is everything I hold dear in a novel--a raucous, page-turning story with grit, utterly steeped in the land and people, and told in such poetic language that I kept forcing myself to slow down so I could enjoy the writing." - Eowyn Ivey, New York Times bestselling author of the The Snow Child

"Beautiful and thrilling . . . capture[s] the texture of southern life during Prohibition in 'poor cotton country' . . . Dixie Clay is irresistible, an American original, a girl who shoots, bargains, and bootlegs (and falls in love) with the best of them." - Bonnie Jo Campbell, bestselling author of Once Upon a River on The Tilted World

"Thriller stories are easy to come by--as are small lyrical gems. The two come together in The Tilted World. . . . You will experience a sprawling story of conflict, disorder, shame, and horror that is umbrellaed by an even bigger story--one of love." - Garden & Gun Magazine

"The Tilted World is an exhilarating, eager, and epic novel from two of our most distinguished American writers, Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly, who handle unthinkable catastrophe, reckless behavior, and alarming pyrotechnics with grit, grace, and tenderness. Our improbable heroes, a bootlegger and the federal agent on her trail, are resolutely heroic. Their story is harrowing and haunting, and the suspense is so terrifying that you hope it never ends." - John Dufresne, author of No Regrets, Coyote

A swift, soulful mix of love story and crime saga . . . evocative characters and unpretentious but shapely prose . . . The Tilted World is literary crime fiction of the highest order." - Seattle Times on The Tilted World

"A suspenseful, emotionally moving novel . . . The authors superbly depict the bonds of maternal, romantic, and brotherly love, and their slangy dialogue and piquant metaphors enrich their setting. This is a full-bodied shot of bluesy Americana with just the right amount of grit, heart, and woeful longing, and it goes down smooth and satisfying." - Booklist (starred review) on The Tilted World

"Franklin and Fennelly tell their poignant tale of family and love, suffering and courage with a graceful pathos, using beautiful, poetic language. . . . [A] moving, exquisitely told historical novel about one of the country's most destructive natural disasters." - Shelf Awareness on The Tilted World

"Hell at the Breech boasts all the satisfactions of a contemporary mystery, with a lovely post-Reconstruction touch--it's as if Faulkner wrote the serials, with all the pleasures and profound strangeness that that implies." - Entertainment Weekly

"Often compared to Faulkner, [Franklin] combines the Nobel Laureate's mastery of evocative language and his fascination with the dark underside of humanity. Franklin's prose is taut and beautiful... From the first page, Hell at the Breech is an important novel, one with the potential to change the way the readers see life and death." - BookPage

"Clean, unpretentious language laid down in masterly fashion propel's Franklin's reconstruction of impoverished tenant farmers taking the law, or lack their own hands at the end of the 19th century...Historical fiction as smooth and relentless as the darkest Elmore Leonard. First-rate." - Kirkus Reviews, (starred review) on Hell At the Breech