Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

'Superb. Dark, brooding, beautifully written' The Times Books of the Year

Amos, Mississippi, is a quiet town. Silas Jones is its sole law enforcement officer. The last excitement here was nearly twenty years ago, when a teenage girl disappeared on a date with Larry Ott, Silas's one-time boyhood friend. The law couldn't prove Larry guilty, but Amos's residents have shunned him ever since.

Then the town's peace is shattered when someone tries to kill the reclusive Ott, another young woman goes missing, and the town's drug dealer is murdered. Woven through the tautly written mystery is the unspoken secret that hangs over the lives of two men - one black, one white.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, is a masterful novel, sizzling with deep Southern menace.

'A beautifully crafted thriller. This award-winning crime novel invited comparisons with To Kill A Mockingbird' Financial Times Books of the Year

'Franklin's prose is startlingly beautiful . . . But what sticks at the end is Franklin's shattering, heartbreaking depiction of loneliness' Observer Books of the Year

'Beautiful writing, a spot-on sense of place and an emotionally potent story charge this highly original, literary crime offering' George Pelecanos