Barbara Clark

Hank Early’s riveting debut novel, Heaven's Crooked Finger, is set in Georgia's countryside, deep in mountain country. Most of its residents haven’t traveled beyond the Fingers, the five imposing peaks that surround their county. Those mountains, and what may be found there, are the focus of Early’s gripping narrative.

Readers will take a trip into the dark, evil heart of religious zealotry, and into the heart of fanatical preacher RJ Marcus. He keeps his congregation thoroughly cowed with his fiery sermons on hell and damnation along with his snakes, slithering in a pit at the front of the church, waiting to test a sinner’s faith—or fear.

After committing sins that are unpardonable in the eyes of the Church of the Holy Flame, RJ’s 17-year-old son Earl rebels against his father and leaves town. Earl's obedient brother, Lester, remains behind. But neither son has been able to free himself from their controlling father, even after his death months ago.

Thirty years after his escape, Earl is returning to his hometown in order to investigate the bizarre rumors that RJ has risen from the dead and ascended into the mountains, ruling the lives of his flock with all the terror of a true demon.

Earl is not as likable a fellow as we might wish for in a protagonist, but Heaven's Crooked Finger is chock full of meaty characters, any one of whom could figure as the subject of a separate book: the wily Rufus, whose lack of sight is never a hindrance to his wit and kindness; a villainous sheriff; runaways Millie and Todd; and a collection of lovely young women, victims of the church’s despotism.

Altogether this is a humdinger of a story told with a fresh voice and more than a lick of understanding.

We have an understandable human fascination with stories of underground societies. Homeless and often forgotten people have done what seems incredible and unnatural to humankind—a species that has always thrived in the open air and on high ground. Here are the people who choose to go underground; and much has been written about the individuals who shelter in the tunnels and abandoned human byways that exist under earth’s cities.

In her outstanding new Ruth Galloway novel, The Chalk Pit, author Elly Griffiths as usual has drawn on her extensive knowledge of archaeology and history, enticing readers beneath the streets of Norwich, England, on a dark journey that will yield some strange discoveries. Archaeologist and professor Ruth travels below ground to a series of abandoned thoroughfares to investigate the age and provenance of some human remains just discovered in an area where a local architect hopes to build a very modern enclave of shops and restaurants.

At the same time, DCI Harry Nelson is looking into the mysterious disappearance of a homeless woman named Babs, and he hears a rumor that she may have gone underground. Then, two homeless men who knew her are found brutally murdered. Soon Ruth, Nelson and his detective team are pursuing separate investigations in the eerie, claustrophobic yet fascinating caverns beneath the streets where they uncover a trove of unsuspected life and activity.

Readers new to Griffith’s stellar mystery series will soon become familiar with Ruth and Nelson and their singular relationship, as well as with the unconventional, extended family of friends and acquaintances who’ve been with the series since its outset, from the meticulous Judy and Druid-inspired Cathbad to Clough and his love, Cassandra.

Griffiths’ understated, dry humor invests her characters with a special humanity that’s a cut above the ordinary. Behind each character’s façade, their thoughts can be very funny indeed—mostly not too far off from emotions we’ve felt ourselves. Conversely, when the author wants to move you to tears, she can also do that very well indeed.

The novel wraps with a zinger of a final sentence (containing a suspicion that a few skeptical readers may have had earlier in the story), and it's one that guarantees the allure of the next Ruth Galloway book that is sure to follow.

“I didn’t do the crime.” Journalist Rebekah Roberts reads these words, part of prisoner DeShawn Perkins’ handwritten plea for justice. He’s doing time for a murder that took place 22 years earlier, when Malcolm and Sabrina Davis, along with their young foster daughter, were brutally shot in their Crown Heights apartment. DeShawn, their troubled foster son, is fingered for the crime. But after reading DeShawn’s letter, Rebekah is moved to follow up on his contention of innocence.

Conviction is the latest mystery from Julia Dahl (Invisible City, Run You Down). Police officer Saul Katz, a prominent character in Dahl's earlier books, is a kind of stepfather to Rebekah. The story slips back and forth in time between 2014, the year Rebekah reads DeShawn's letter, to 1992. We learn that 1992 was the year of the murder, and that Katz was involved in the DeShawn case as a rookie with the NYPD during this time when violence between black and Jewish neighborhoods was rampant in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

The elements of this chilling, well-crafted jigsaw puzzle never skip over the hard facts of racial division and frequent bloodshed that racked the Brooklyn community during the '90s. Each character receives close attention: from Isaiah, an uncompromising Jewish landlord; to Henrietta, whose testimony solidified the case; to Joseph's unspoken, terrible mission; and finally to DeShawn and his tragic story. Most of all, Conviction captures the characters of Saul and Rebekah in their intricate, sometimes explosive interactions that explore both affection and wariness.

One particular passage captures Dahl’s essential mindset as she frames this story. In Saul's early cop years, while closely involved with the Crown Heights neighborhood, he recognizes “how much the camaraderie among officers resembled the camaraderie among the men in shul. . . . The men in blue uniforms—like the men in black hats—had a common language, a common purpose, a common set of rules and prejudices. They were misunderstood by outsiders, but outsiders were not important. What was important was the man beside you.”

Rebekah shines in this installment in Dahl's series, and the young journalist is sure to linger in readers’ minds. She’s solid, believable and never overplayed. In Conviction, Rebekah recognizes the insular nature of parties in conflict and finds a way to bring the truth to light.