James A. McLaughlin is a native of Virginia who lives in the Wasatch Range east of Salt Lake City, Utah. He holds law and MFA degrees from the University of Virginia.
Holy City (2024) Henry Wise "A devastating first novel. . . Henry Wise arrives with a powerful new voice in the rarified air of truly literary crime fiction. Deeply rooted in the complex natural and cultural landscape of southern Virginia, Holy City is an engaging, original, and sometimes explosive take on what it can mean to go home again. Wise gives us a suspenseful crime story rich with lyrical flourishes and populated by tough, courageous, complicated people struggling with the power and burden of lifelong guilt, of unpayable debts. . . ultimately Holy City is a searching exploration of the fraught space between revenge and redemption where no choices are easy or even right. Not only wise, but brave as well, Holy City is a compelling and affecting read, not to be missed."
Lighthouse Burning (2023) (Harlan Winter, book 1) Jordan Farmer "The Poison Flood is thrilling, poignant, and full of music, a forceful counterpunch to the usual expectations about poverty, trauma, and physical difference."
Project Namahana (2022) John Teschner "A smart, propulsive, high-stakes dive into the wild heart of Kaua'i. A stunning debut from a writer I'll be reading again."
Winter Counts (2020) David Heska Wanbli Weiden "WINTER COUNTS is a gripping, richly textured thriller and an urgent dispatch from Indian Country. Crimes are solved, violence happens, and Virgil Wounded Horse, a hard-fisted, big-hearted, irresistible Lakota enforcer, guides us through the complicated realities of contemporary Native life on and off the reservation. Weiden writes with impressive authority and insight in this entirely original, enlightening, cliché-destroying novel."
You Again (2020) Debra Jo Immergut "Debra Jo Immergut brings her considerable literary talent to bear in this thrilling and beautifully-imagined exploration of a universally tantalizing notion--meeting your younger self! You Again is a swirling, propulsive novel of suspense and a deep dive into time, memory, art, family. Ambitious and enthralling."
The Distant Dead (2020) Heather Young "With her usual blend of inventive storytelling and gorgeous prose, Heather Young delivers big themes and a poignant coming-of-age story in this complex, page-turning mystery/thriller. Resonant and relevant, The Distant Dead kept me reading late at night, and the characters followed me around during the day, especially a precocious and unusual sixth-grade boy named Absalom who is hard to forget. As a fan of Young’s debut, The Lost Girls, I found myself swept into another beautifully-crafted story that’s even more suspenseful, at times more terrifying, and ultimately just as surprising. The Distant Dead is not to be missed."
August (2020) Callan Wink "August is alive. I haven’t connected with a character so intensely—and sometimes uncomfortably—since I first read Jim Harrison’s early novels almost thirty years ago. Wink’s prose has Harrison’s into-the-vein immediacy and Tom McGuane’s perfect pitch, and there’s a hard-to-pin-down hint of Cormac McCarthy in there too (so that makes three of my heroes). But the voice and ethos are new to me, and absolutely Wink’s."
