Broken trust. Relationships dissolved in emotional acid. Every whispered secret demands a price.
From the award-winning author selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2026 comes THINGS ARE AS THEY SHOULD BE AND OTHER WORDS TO DIE FOR, a love letter to New Orleans' Southern Gothic atmosphere and crime noir traditions. This shared narrative experience spans Reconstruction New Orleans to a present-day landscape of terror. Each story invests the reader in a setting and characters that traverse the fringes of the Louisiana swamps, pool halls in New Orleans, and attics filled with boxes of cherished memories, each tale patinaed with desperation and death.
An exploration of greed, vengeance, and generational trauma in tales that center Louisiana and its rich history of the wicked, the haunted, and the unforgiven who refuse to rest.
