cover image Alice Isn’t Dead

Alice Isn’t Dead

Joseph Fink. Harper Perennial, $19.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-06-284413-2

Based on the podcast of the same name, Fink’s thrilling first solo novel follows a woman thrown into the middle of a secret war that takes place in the vast, empty stretches of America. Keisha Taylor believed her wife, Alice, dead after she disappeared without a trace. Then, six months after the funeral, Keisha sees Alice in the background of a news report. Thus begins her search, crisscrossing America after getting a job as a long-distance trucker, following up leads culled from Alice’s notes and papers. Along the way, she’s threatened by monsters called Thistle Men and discovers a vast conspiracy that protects them as they prey upon people along the highways. Creator of the popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast, Fink (It Devours! with Jeffrey Cranor) fills his world with fully realized characters, from Keisha, who uses her grief and anxiety to give herself strength, to Sylvia, the runaway teenager who fights against the Thistle Men who killed her mom. Fans of eerie suspense will find much to like. [em]Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House. (Oct.) [/em]