Night Letter


 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 One
 Two
 Three
 Four
 Five
 Six
 Seven
 Eight
 Nine
 Ten
 Eleven
 Twelve
 Thirteen
 Fourteen
 Fifteen
 Sixteen
 Seventeen
 Eighteen
 Nineteen
 Twenty
 Twenty-One
 Twenty-Two
 Twenty-Three
 Twenty-Four
 Twenty-Five
 Twenty-Six
 Twenty-Seven
 Twenty-Eight
 Twenty-Nine
 Thirty
 Thirty-One
 Thirty-Two
 Thirty-Three
 Thirty-Four
 Thirty-Five
 Acknowledgments
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 One
 Acknowledgments
 Start to Contents
 
 
 
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 MORE CRITICAL PRAISE FOR STERLING WATSON
 
 For The Committee
 
 “In this sharply crafted novel, his seventh, [Watson] recreates the era with rich detail and a creeping sense of dread … The Committee is the kind of story that makes you hope it can’t happen here—but reminds you that it already has.”
 —Tampa Bay Times
 
 
 “Watson has written a fine, eloquent, powerful book and its message will remain timely. Let us heed its warning even as we savor the story so well told in its pages.”
 —Southern Literary Review
 
 
 “Historians, of necessity, are skeptical of historical fiction. But there is the atypical work, such as Patrick Smith’s A Land Remembered, that historians praise for its historical verisimilitude. Sterling Watson’s The Committee has a narrower scope than Smith’s Florida epic, but Watson accurately conveys the emotional turmoil induced in Floridians by the Johns Committee in the 1950s.”
 —Florida Times-Union
 
 
 “[A] captivating read and an absorbing tale about the abuses that can arise from intolerance and prejudice. It carries a warning from the past to the siloed, fractured communities of today.”
 —Historical Novel Society
 
 
 “The Committee is at once a historical, political, and academic novel, and it is one that succeeds on all these fronts … Those who yearn for a return to the solid, established 50s may not know just what it is they are wishing for. The Committee should serve as a wholesome reminder.”
 —Reviewing the Evidence
 
 
 “The Committee takes place on campus, but deserves to be included with those ‘academic’ novels like Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe, Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, and Jane Smiley’s Moo, all books that burst out of their scholarly settings to light up the characters and societies they live in. And life in Gainesville in the 1950s doesn’t bear looking at too closely: Without being preachy or didactic, Watson’s book exposes the race, class, and gender wars running below the picturesque pathways like tainted water; there’s been some progress since then, but the reader is led to wonder how meaningful it’s been … This book will hold you to the very end, and after.”
 —Creative Loafing Tampa
 
 
 “The Johns Committee, a real, if lesser-known, McCarthy-esque group active in Florida, hovers over this tense, character-driven novel set in 1958 … Watson ably evokes a sense of the McCarthy era’s regional impact in this thought-provoking story.”
 —Publishers Weekly
 
 For Suitcase City
 
 “[T]he telling is masterful … Sit back and enjoy Watson’s latest. It’s better than bourbon on the rocks.”
 —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
 
 
 “Hypnotically beautiful novel … Paranoia has been defined as ‘seeing too much pattern.’ Author Watson can make us sweaty victims of that madness, partaking of it, suffering from it, and loving every minute.”
 —Booklist, starred review
 
 
 “Watson’s magic is in pacing and taut prose … Suitcase City is an absorbing thriller, a vivid adventure in a bright, humid, perilous underworld … [A] tense, bloody thriller with a strong sense of place and a soft heart.”
 —Shelf Awareness, starred review
 
 
 “A noir gem … A deeply contemplative and darkly poetic prose style complements the well-crafted plot.”
 —Publishers Weekly
 
 
 “A solid revenge tale … There is plenty of action to be had in this suspense tale, but it is the examination of the characters’ motivations that really makes it shine. For fans of Lee Child and Nicci French.”
 —Library Journal
 
 
 “Watson weaves … questions about race into a plot that takes one bloody turn after another, a crescendo of violence that ends with a day at sea that might be the most chilling of all.”
 —Tampa Bay