The Bayou

Chanlarivyè, Louisiana, 1935. Nearly twenty years earlier, when Eugene was twelve, a girl named Mary Beth vanished near the bayou. The town decided alligators had taken her and called it an accident. Eugene has never accepted that, because Mary Beth was haunted by a man nobody else could see.

Now people are going missing again, and this time no bodies turn up. Unease spreads through the town as the disappearances pile up, and the old explanation about gators no longer covers what is happening.

Into this comes Johnny Walker, a charming fugitive who leaves spent bullet casings and stolen bank notes along his path. He becomes entangled in Eugene's life, and his presence stirs memories Eugene believed were buried: the stranger who followed him into his dreams, and the bayou itself.

Something lives beneath the water there, and it is seeping into the town like a stain. The book mixes Depression-era crime with dread, and it asks whether Eugene can face what he remembers before the town loses more of its people.