The Marble Orchard

The Kentucky hill people who inhabit the pages of this gothic suspense novel are forged sharply enough to draw blood, which they do with disquieting regularity. This debut novel is a tale of scorching realism, and Taylor's (The Name of the Nearest River) diction, precise and evocative, mirrors the nasty, brutish lives of casually cruel men and stoic women whose decades-long grudges and dark secrets hover dangerously close to the surface. The incident that sets the plot in motion is the murder of a would-be robber by Beam Sheetmire. The robber, the son of a wealthy local businessman, also happens to be involved with a secret from Beam's past. Beam tries to run away, but his flight is too late; his act has already started a string of violence, abetted by a mysterious stranger with uncertain motives and a slight whiff of the supernatural about him. Taylor's plot is relentless and the reader is not released from its throes until the very end%E2%80%94not neatly, but with a lingering air of sadness and inevitably that is difficult to shake off. This is a stunning debut novel. (Feb.)