Hinton Hollow Death Trip

In Carver’s fascinating, downbeat third crime novel featuring London’s Detective Sergeant Pace (after 2020’s Nothing Important Happened Today), the narrator, Evil, recounts its five-day stay in the town of Hinton Hollow, population 5,120, warning in the opening pages that anyone squeamish about child murder or animal cruelty should not read on. Pace returns to his hometown of Hinton Hollow, looking for a respite from the darkness and chaos he deals with in the city. Instead, he’s pulled into the investigation of the murder of a schoolboy, who was shot in front of his mother and brother. As Evil observes, “It was the start of a rampage. Passionate, yes. But without pattern. The kind of case that has detectives frustrated by its apparent randomness.” Others die as Evil hovers over the town, gently fanning the embers of insecurity, greed, gluttony, and loneliness, until they flare into rage. Readers who finish this disturbing and seductive tale do so at the risk of experiencing actual nightmares. Carver pulls off with ease what might have been a gimmick in lesser hands. Agent: Blake Friedmann, Blake Friedmann Literary (U.K.). (Mar.)