November Road by Lou Berney ~ an Excerpt

Behold! The Big Easy in all its wicked splendor!
Frank Guidry paused at the corner of Toulouse to bask in the neon furnace glow. He's lived in New Orleans the better part of his thirty-seven years on earth, but the dirty glitter and sizzle of the French Quarter still hit his bloodstream like a drug. Yokels and locals, muggers and hustlers, fire-eaters and magicians. A go-go girl was draped over the wrought-iron rail of a second-floor balcony, one book sprung free from her sequenced negligee and swaying like a metronome to the beat of the jazz trio inside. Bass, drums, piano, tearing through "Night and Day." But that was New Orleans for you. Even the worst band in the crummiest clip joint in the city could swing, man, swing. (p. 3)

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October 2019; William Morrow; 978-0062663849
audio, ebook, print (320 pages); suspense

Set against the assassination of JFK, a poignant and evocative crime novel that centers on a desperate cat-and-mouse chase across 1960s America—a story of unexpected connections, daring possibilities, and the hope of second chances from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone.

Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out.

A loyal lieutenant to New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in America, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Within hours of JFK’s murder, people with ties to Marcello are turning up dead and Guidry suspects he’s next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas to see an old acquaintance, a ruthless man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish. Maybe.

Guidry knows that the first rule of running is “don’t stop,” but when he catches sight of a woman on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two young daughters and a dog in the backseat, he sees the perfect disguise, a way to cover his tracks and outrun the hitmen on his tail. Posing as an insurance salesman, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car.

For Charlotte, it’s more than a car—it’s an escape. She’s on the run, too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a husband who’s a hopeless drunk. It’s an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hope—and find each other on the way. Charlotte is drawn to a man who’s open-minded and kind; Guidry is attracted to a woman who’s smart and funny. He learns that she’s determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she can’t ever know that he’s desperate to leave his old one behind.

But fugitives shouldn’t fall in love, especially with each other. A road isn’t just a road: it’s a trail, and Guidry’s relentless and murderous hunters are closing in on him. Guidry discovers that he doesn’t just want to survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.

Everyone’s expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry can’t abandon the woman and two little girls he’s come to love.

And it might get all of them killed.

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Named a Best Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly • Washington Post • AARP • Newsweek • Dallas Morning News • South Florida Sun-Sentinel • Crime Reads

About the Author

Lou Berney is the author of three previous novels, Gutshot Straight, Whiplash River, and multiple prize-winning The Long and Faraway Gone. His short fiction has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Find out more about Lou at his website, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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