Library Journal
★ 09/01/2018
Frank Guidry is a fixer for the New Orleans mob in 1963, the kind of guy who greases palms and makes things happen. When the subject of his boss's fury, President Kennedy, is assassinated, Frank realizes he recently stashed a getaway car in Dallas as a favor. Everyone connected to him starts disappearing, so Frank decides to hit the road. He meets aspiring artist Charlotte Roy and her two daughters, who are headed to California. Charlotte is running from a broken marriage to an alcoholic and sees no future for herself or her children in small-town Oklahoma. Using the family as cover on the road, Frank forms a connection and finds that protecting is more worthwhile than escaping. Wistful and complex, Berney's confident portrait of a roadside America traumatized by Kennedy's death gives the novel literary heft, while the ticking clock of the mob closing in on the family to settle accounts lends a genre bite. VERDICT Berney's follow-up to The Long and Faraway Gone explores relationships between two complicated and realized characters. With depth and genre crossover appeal, this literary crime thriller will please fans of Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos and also satisfy a wider audience. [See Prepub Alert, 4/23/18.]—Gregg Winsor, Johnson Cty. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Publishers Weekly
★ 08/06/2018
Edgar-winner Berney (The Long and Faraway Gone) takes a familiar plot in unexpected directions in this moving novel. In 1963, Frank Guidry serves New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello as a fixer, assigned to take care of loose ends—permanently. In November of that year, Guidry is tasked with leaving a car in a Dallas parking lot near Dealey Plaza. After President Kennedy’s assassination, Guidry realizes that, because he provided the getaway vehicle for the real killer, he’s become a loose end, and he begins a desperate flight to evade execution. Eventually, he crosses paths with Charlotte Roy, an unhappy Oklahoma housewife, who has resolved to make a better life for herself and her two young daughters, away from her alcoholic husband, by starting afresh in California. While Berney creates nail-biting suspense by placing Marcello’s top hit man on Guidry’s trail, the book’s power derives from Charlotte, who finds hidden strength as she confronts unexpected challenges. This is much more than just another conspiracy thriller. Author tour. Agent: Richard Parks, Richard Parks Agency. (Oct.)
Steve Hamilton
In November Road, Lou Berney shows you everything that crime fiction can be—a tightrope story that takes you across the entire landscape of America, lived by characters as real as anyone you’ve ever known... It’s the best book I’ve read this year—and second place isn’t even close.
Austin Chronicle on November Road
Berney is the kind of writer who knows how to tickle a reader’s expectations with the familiar, then raise the bar with superb character development, humor, and gritty fun.
Laura Lippman
Lou Berney has quickly become one of crime fiction’s stand-outs, a quietly subversive writer who can surprise the most jaded readers. November Road delivers everything we have come to expect from him — and then some.”
Megan Abbott
From its first frenetic pages to its wrenching final ones, Lou Berney takes us on the ride of a lifetime...It’s a crime story, a love story, a deeply American story. With November Road, Berney proves beyond doubt that he’s one of the most talented crime novelists working today.
Ivy Pochoda
November Road is a thriller that defies categorization. A triumph of plot and prose and a brilliant depiction of the contradictions of 1960s America, the innocence, the violence, and the longing.
Don Winslow
“November Road is a remarkable and unforgettable reading experience... You will recommend it to friends. You will read it again. Berney is a writer to be read and admired. This is a staggeringly brilliant book and a flat-out terrific read.
Associated Press
This superior novel from Edgar winner Lou Berney melds crime fiction with a tale about people reinventing themselves, played out during a cross-country automobile trip.… An emotional story about the power of love and redemption through sacrifice with the backdrop of a crucial historical moment.
Stephen King on November Road
When people say they want to read a really good novel, the kind you just can’t put down, this is the kind of book they mean. Exceptional.
A. J. Finn
Nothing less than an instant American classic. Haunting, thrilling—and indelible as a scar.
CriminalElement.com on November Road
“November Road is a transcendent, immersive novel that melds elements of many genres—crime, travelogue, and romance among them—seamlessly against the backdrop of a nation divided.
Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star on November Road
Conceived in ingenuity, executed with vision and steeped in carnage, November Road... examines hope lost, hope found—and the upshots, expected or otherwise, of love.
Gilly Macmillan
“November Road is an absolute gem of a crime novel. Utterly immersive and pitch perfect in every way.
Entertainment Weekly
Berney’s emotional, empathic writing keeps the dynamic between these two lost souls intriguing, and it resonates on a larger scale, placed as it is against such a vivid backdrop... and there’s no complaint from this reader on his keeping the pages turning.
Booklist (starred review) on November Road
Berney bends his notes exquisitely, playing with the melody, building his marvelously rich characters while making us commit completely to the love story, even though we hear the melancholy refrain and see the noir cloud lurking in the sky. Pitch-perfect fiction.
Associated Press Staff
This superior novel from Edgar winner Lou Berney melds crime fiction with a tale about people reinventing themselves, played out during a cross-country automobile trip.… An emotional story about the power of love and redemption through sacrifice with the backdrop of a crucial historical moment.
Associated Press on November Road
[T]his superior novel from Edgar winner Lou Berney melds crime fiction with a tale about people reinventing themselves, played out during a cross-country automobile trip.…An emotional story about the power of love and redemption through sacrifice with the backdrop of a crucial historical moment.
A.J. Finn
Nothing less than an instant American classic. Haunting, thrilling—and indelible as a scar.
Booklist (starred review)
Pitch-perfect fiction... “Breakout novel” is an overused phrase, but it just may fit this much buzzed-about jewel from a writer who easily reaches across the aisle separating thrillers and literary fiction.”
Chicago Examiner.com
Fast and funny . . full of memorable moments and characters that you won’t soon forget.
Times Record News (Wichita Falls
A fast-paced, sexy novel, packed with spine-tingling intrigue and money-induced lust...Excellent.
Parkersburg News and Sentinel
A taut, engrossing thriller.
Examiner.com
Compelling and dark . . . five stars out of five.
The Barnes & Noble Review
A delirious caper in the spirit of Hiaasen and Leonard.
Abraham Rodriguez
An exciting read you can’t put down. A definite must read.
