Click each cover pic to order it, read more about it or visit the author’s website.
Penalties of June
John Brandon
Coming out just in time on November 26 is John Brandon’s sixth book from McSweeney’s, who describes the book thusly: “With his distinct feel for the underbelly of his home state of Florida, Brandon takes readers into the forbidding corners of the Tampa Bay area — unsavory motels, secondhand shops, no-frills diners, and dubious used-car lots. Pratt navigates crime bosses and drug dealers on a perilous mission, his steed a trusty (if creaky) Chrysler LeBaron. Faced with an impossible choice, and the prospect of finally finding love after years behind bars, Pratt risks it all for a chance at making things right.”
Silent Are the Dead
D. M. Rowell
Native American spirituality and contemporary tech savvy join forces to provide the backdrop to this mystery series set in Kiowa Country—in and around Lawton, Oklahoma—and Silicon Valley in California. In this second book of the series, Mae/Mud Sawpole must find a body that goes missing, reclaim a vanished artifact, stop illegal fracking in Kiowa Country, and stay clear of rattlesnakes—both reptile and human. This looks to be an engrossing, enlightening read for fans of Tony Hillerman or any other good, twisty mystery.
The American Daughters
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
In a stark parallel to looming contemporary times, this historical fiction set in antebellum New Orleans follows enslaved girl Ady as she searches for the mother she was separated from. She discovers the Mockingbird Inn and Lenore, a free Black woman leading an underground resistance called the Daughters. The New York Times Book Review hails it as “this important, neglected history with imagination-fueled research, The American Daughters offers an inspiring story of people who show a way forward with their perseverance, bravery and love.”