Taste of Marrow

Gailey’s delightful second novella of mishaps and mayhem in an alternate 19th-century American South picks up a few weeks after the events of Rivers of Teeth, and relies heavily on the reader’s familiarity with the earlier volume. The outlaws who demolished the Harriet Dam and released feral hippos into the wilds of the Mississippi delta have been divided. Leader Winslow Houndstooth and con artist Regina Archambault have been frantically searching Louisiana for their compatriots; killers Adelia Reyes and Hero, believing that they are the only survivors, have been trying to stay one step ahead of U.S. Marshal Gran Carter and his warrant for Adelia’s arrest. When Adelia’s infant is kidnapped by the team’s erstwhile employer, the two groups converge on Baton Rouge, bringing the unfinished threads of their job together at last. This sequel both revisits and completes the story of the first book, providing a reinterpretation without invalidating the original experience. While there are no new revelations about our heroes, Gailey deepens the existing characterizations and relationships that were a highlight of her previous work. Agent: DongWon Song, Howard Morhaim Literary. (Sept.)