In the ballroom of a sparsely furnished Connecticut mansion, police find a shocking sight: four bodies lined up next to each other, three teenagers and a middle-aged woman, each lying peacefully on a blanket, each shot once in the head. In an upstairs bedroom: an elderly woman and the family dog, both of them shot as well. The only person missing is the husband, father, son, and prime suspect, John Hartman, who's got a three-week jump on the police. Through the eyes of almost two dozen characters, including the neighbor who reports the crime, Hartman’s mistress, a dogged state investigator, the family minister, and some of the characters Hartman meets on his escape route, we piece together not only what happened and how these shocking murders affect the community, but how John Hartman evades capture, where he’s headed, and maybe even why he committed this gruesome crime in the first place. Based on the notorious John List murders and already compared to works by Norman Mailer and Russell Banks, Devil in the Hole is gripping, literate, and haunting.
Author
Charles Salzberg's latest novel, Swann's Lake of Despair, is the third in the Henry Swann Detective Series. When rare photos, a scandalous diary, and a beautiful woman all go missing at once, the stage is set for three challenging cases for this skip tracer and his slovenly, disbarred lawyer friend, Goldblatt. Devil in the Hole, his last novel, is a work of literary crime fiction based on the notorious John List murders, which is on shelves now, was just chosen by Suspense Magazine as one of the Best True Crime Novels of the Year. It is also now available as an e-book on Kindle. He is also the author of the Henry Swann detective series: Swann’s Last Song, which was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel; Swann Dives In; and the upcoming Swann's Lake of Despair. Salzberg has been a Visiting Professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and has taught writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Hunter College, the Writer's Voice, and the New York Writers Workshop, where he was a Founding Member. He is a consulting editor at the webzine Ducts.org and co-host, with Jonathan Kravetz, of the reading series, Trumpet Fiction, at KGB in New York City. His freelance articles has appeared in such publications as Esquire, New York Magazine, GQ, Elle, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, The New York Times Arts and Leisure section, The New York Times Book Review, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He is also the author of From Set Shot to Slam Dunk, An Oral History of the NBA; On A Clear Day They Could See Seventh Place: Baseball’s 10 Worst Teams of the Century; and co-author of My Zany Life and Times, by Soupy Sales, Catch Them Being Good; and The Mad Fisherman.
