Cemetery Road

Starred review from December 21, 2009
Reverberations from a crime committed in their youth follow three grown men with the tenacity and inevitability of Greek tragedy in Haywood's beautifully crafted novel of unintended consequences. The gunning down in Los Angeles 26 years later of one of the three, R.J. Burrow, prompts Errol “Handy” White to return to L.A. from St. Paul, Minn., to say good-bye and to discover if R.J.'s death was related to their crime. Handy reconnects with O'Neal Holden, the third member of the trio, who's now mayor of nearby Bellwood. Haywood (All the Lucky Ones Are Dead
) reaches new heights as he peels back the layers of a well-planned robbery to reveal its devastating ripple effects. These ripples spread like a hidden cancer that only reveals itself as Handy cautiously probes R.J.'s murder and the life that preceded it. Each of the three men feels the burden of guilt; each tries in some way to atone; but some wrongs can't be righted.