Dark August

April 27, 2020
Screenwriter and director Tallo makes her debut with an engrossing mystery. Twenty-year-old Augusta “Gus” Monet, who’s been leading an aimless life, returns to her hometown of Ottawa, Canada, after she learns of the death of her great-grandmother, Rose. When Gus was eight, Rose sent her away to boarding school after Gus’s widowed police detective mother, Shannon, died in a car accident. At Rose’s house, Gus finds a trunk filled with Shannon’s cold case files. She remembers that her mother was obsessed with local powerbroker Kep Halladay, convinced he was responsible for multiple suspicious deaths and a college student’s disappearance, but Shannon’s efforts to expose him were thwarted at every turn by Halladay’s wealth and connections. When a body is unearthed that’s connected with one of the cold cases in the trunk, Gus gets on the same investigative trail as Shannon, and in so doing unleashes a terrifying and violent chain of events. Distinctive characters and an intricate plot will keep readers turning the pages. Tallo is off to a promising start. Agent: David P. Halpern, Robbins Office.

Starred review from May 1, 2020
This truly inspired piece of writing, reminiscent of William Faulkner, whose most acclaimed novel is, interestingly enough, Light in August. In Dark August, we meet Augusta "Gus" Monet, a 20-year-old badly damaged by the death of her mother when she was eight and by an emotionally deprived childhood spent under her great grandmother's care. Living an aimless existence in Toronto with a no-good boyfriend, surviving on the proceeds of petty crime, Gus learns that her great grandmother has died. At first, it appears that all that has been left to Gus is a decaying old house and a geriatric dog, but then she makes an amazing find in great granny's mattress and uncovers a special treasure that reconnects Gus to her police-detective mother?files from the crime she was working on at the time of her death. Gus journeys, often dangerously, through a small town's secretive past looking for answers, as the reader witnesses her transformation into a remarkable and resilient woman while a mystery of epic proportions unfolds around her. Anyone who has read Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily" will appreciate the singular grotesqueness that manifests itself in the closing chapters, which culminate in a frightening, yet moving, conclusion. Highly recommended for mystery fans, as well as devotees of Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)