Echoes of the Fall: An Earl Marcus Mystery

At the start of Early’s clever third mystery featuring PI Earl Marcus (after 2018’s In the Valley of the Devil), Marcus returns one night to his home in rural Georgia to find a shooting victim, an unidentified young man, in his yard. Marcus embarks on a surreptitious quest, aided by his best friend, Rufus Gribble, to uncover who committed the killing and why. A cellphone in the victim’s car leads to the Harden School, an isolated institution whose purpose is gay conversion therapy for troubled teenage boys. Complicating the investigation is the school’s connection to Jeb Walsh, a corrupt local politician, white supremacist, and old antagonist of Marcus. The past hangs heavily over the characters, especially Rufus, whose own history becomes entangled with the puzzle, adding depth to a story heavy on psychological introspection. The action builds to the obligatory violent confrontation, but in the end, it’s the characters that the reader will remember. Early does a fine job blending crime and the Southern gothic. [em]Agent: Alec Shane, Writers House. (Nov.) [/em]