Paradise, WV

Rufus’s dark, pulpy latest (after The Vinyl Underground) follows a diverse cast of characters in a poor West Virginia town into which opioids have “sunk their claws.” There’s nothing to do in Paradise, and the only reason anyone’s heard of the place is because it was the home of Hollis Lusher, a convicted serial killer known as “the Blind Spot Slasher.” Lusher’s notoriety causes his children, teenagers Henry and Jane—who insist Lusher’s innocent—to be constantly bullied. When the host of a popular true crime podcast arrives in Paradise to report on Lusher, Henry and Jane’s lives are thrown further into chaos. Meanwhile, sheriff’s lieutenant Elena Garcia is investigating the case of a missing girl and determines to dig deeper into the deaths of several people who were addicted to opioids that were previously classified NHI (“no human involved”), suspecting a Blind Spot Slasher copycat is at work, but she is stymied by the sheriff, who dismisses her theory and disparages the victims. Rufus does a great job triangulating the recent interest in true crime narratives with a deep understanding of an isolated and suffering small town, where the local bookstore is “the one place in town where happy endings were still within reach,” pulling off an infectious mix of thriller and social commentary. It adds up to a brilliant critique of the way law enforcement often overlooks those on the wrong side of the tracks. (July)