cover image A Corpse’s Nightmare

A Corpse’s Nightmare

Phillip DePoy. Minotaur, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-69946-8

Near the start of DePoy’s intriguing sixth Fever Devilin novel (after 2008’s The Drifter’s Wheel), the folklorist wakes up in a Georgia hospital, where he learns that he was shot by an unidentified intruder, died, was revived, and has been in a coma for three months. With no memory of these events and given to hallucinations of loud jazz combos playing nearby, Fever enlists his best friend, British-born professor Winton Andrews, to help him piece together disjointed dreams of 1920s Paris, his mother’s previous hints about his family’s past connection to jazz great Jelly Roll Morton, cryptic information from an eccentric New Orleans figure who doses Fever with questionable herbal tea, and the disturbing activities of a local branch of a wider white supremacist organization. Despite some repetition that may irk the reader, the unusual narrative technique that combines whodunit with more unconventional material from the unconscious provides a refreshing take on family history as mystery. (Nov.)