Tom Franklin for Devilwood

Overview

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.