November Road by Lou Berney

"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." —STEPHEN KING

“Berney’s emotional, empathetic writing keeps . . . the pages turning.” —ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, “Required Reading”
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • Washington Post • AARP • Newsweek • Dallas Morning News • South Florida Sun-Sentinel • Chicago Public Library • Real Book Spy • CrimeReads • Litreactor • Library Journal • LitHub • Booklist
Winner of the Barry, Macavity, and Anthony Awards, the Hammett Prize, the Left Coast Crime “Lefty” Award for Best Mystery Novel, the Oklahoma Book Award for Best Fiction Novel, and the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award for Best Thriller Novel!
Set against the assassination of JFK, a poignant and evocative crime novel that centers on a desperate cat-and-mouse chase across 1960s America—a story of unexpected connections, daring possibilities, and the hope of second chances from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone.
Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out.
A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Within hours of JFK’s murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead, and Guidry suspects he’s next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas, to see an old associate—a dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish.
Guidry knows that the first rule of running is "don’t stop," but when he sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two little daughters and a dog in the back seat, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car.
For her, it’s more than a car— it’s an escape. She’s on the run too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband who’s a hopeless drunk.
It’s an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hope—and find each other on the way.
Charlotte sees that he’s strong and kind; Guidry discovers that she’s smart and funny. He learns that’s she determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she can’t know that he’s desperate to leave his old one behind.
Another rule—fugitives shouldn’t fall in love, especially with each other. A road isn’t just a road, it’s a trail, and Guidry’s ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.
Everyone’s expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry just can’t throw away the woman he’s come to love.
And it might get them both killed.
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I’m Lou Berney, and my most recent novel is DARK RIDE (September, 2023). S.A. Cosby calls it "thrilling and heartbreaking." Lisa Lutz says, "If you don’t love this book, give me a call so I can tell you what a moron you are." (I think she might be serious.)
I’m also the author of four other novels, including NOVEMBER ROAD and THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE. Between the two of them, those books won the Edgar, Hammett, Anthony, Barry, Macavity, Steel Dagger, ALA, and Oklahoma Book awards. I have discovered that there are a lot of different ways to nervously stammer and stumble through an acceptance speech.
Between the ages of 12 and 19 I was fired from approximately nine different jobs, including newspaper delivery boy (dereliction of duty), apartment complex maintenance man (general incompetence), and photo darkroom attendant (dereliction of duty, general incompetence, inappropriate use of darkroom). Since the age of 19, I have not been fired from a job.
My wife and I travel whenever we can (and whenever we save up enough airline miles). We’ve been to Australia, Japan, Egypt, and Colombia. My favorite experience was in Rwanda, where we visited the mountain gorillas. The guides warned us to be careful because although the gorillas are gentle, they are “gorilla gentle.”
I love dogs. No, I really mean it. I LOVE dogs. I happen to live with the best dog in the world, a golden retriever who thinks he can control me with his mind. But the joke is on him, because every time he stares at me I just give him a treat and he goes away.
A (very) small sampling of my favorite writers, in no particular order: Kate Atkinson, Elmore Leonard, Kelly Link, Walter Mosley, Laura Lippman, Flannery O’Connor, Don Winslow, Megan Abbott, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Louise Erdrich, Stephen Harrigan, Ivy Pochoda, Lynda Barry (not to mention S.A. Cosby and Lisa Lutz).

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November Road: A Novel by Lou Berney

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November Road: A Novel by Lou Berney

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