This Edgar Award winner is "equal parts morality tale and page-turning thriller" (Denver Post)—classic American storytelling in its truest, darkest, and most affecting form, with echoes of William Faulkner and Harper Lee.
Its 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated and left to die in the bottoms of the Sabine River, their small town is instantly charged with tension. When a second body turns up, this time of a white woman, there is little Harry can do from stopping his Klan neighbors from lynching an innocent black man. Together with his younger sister, Harry sets out to discover who the real killer is, and to do so they will search for a truth that resides far deeper than any river or skin color.
The Edgar Award winning thriller The Bottoms is classic American storytelling in its truest, darkest, and more affecting formwith echoes of William Faulkner and Harper Lee.
Its 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated and left to die in the bottoms of the Sabine River, their small town is instantly charged with tension. When a second body turns up, this time of a white woman, there is little Harry can do from stopping his Klan neighbors from lynching an innocent black man. Together with his younger sister, Harry sets out to discover who the real killer is, and to do so they will search for a truth that resides far deeper than any river or skin color.
"Wondrous...dark enchantment."
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New York Times Book Review "Terrific suspense...equal parts morality tale and page-turning thriller."
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Denver Post "Lansdale subtly but surely traces how race hatred can embitter, poison, and often physically destroy those who fall under its sway."
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Philadelphia Inquirer "Lansdale creates many colorful and vivid characters. . . . The Bottoms tells a great yarn of a vanished place and time."
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-Bookreporter