The Evening Shades

Martin picks up the thread from his 2005 novel, The Bright Forever, about the killing of a nine-year-old named Katie Mackey, in his subtle latest. In 1972, mathematics teacher Henry Dees disappears from small-town Tower Hill, Ind., after townspeople come to believe he helped a convicted murderer kill Katie, who was his student. He shows up in Mt. Gilead, Ill., where he rents a room from Edith Green, a lonely woman who impulsively promised a large gift from her recently deceased father’s estate to the town library. These two awkward outsiders begin a romance, which annoys Edith’s would-be suitor, Bertie Squiggs, and leads to questions about where Henry came from. When Bertie, a tow truck driver, happens to be in Tower Hill delivering a Mustang, he learns the police are looking for Henry. As revelations in Tower Hill raise the stakes, Henry and Edith get engaged and Bertie wrestles with whether to informthe police of Henry’s whereabouts. Martin’s slow-burn mystery runs on reflective character work and lucid prose, and he keeps the reader guessing right up to the end. This is one to savor. Agent: Gail Hochman: Brandt & Hochman Assoc. (Mar.)