Down Don't Bother Me

A hugely entertaining debut—the first novel in a wickedly funny gothic mystery series set in the withering landscape of the southern Illinois coal country known as “little Egypt”—that blends the wry humor of Kevin Wilson, the dark violence of Urban Waite, and the electric atmosphere of Greg Iles.

In the depths of the Knight Hawk, one of the last working collieries in downstate Illinois, the body of...