Galveston

‘Recalls only the finest examples of the form’ Dennis Lehane

‘The elegance Pizzolatto brings to his heart-wrenching story makes it unforgettable’ Daily Mail

From the creator of the hit HBO series TRUE DETECTIVE comes a powerful, gleaming-dark thriller rich with Southern atmosphere.

Roy Cady is by his own admission ‘a bad man’. With a snow flurry of cancer in his lungs and no one to live for, he’s a walking time-bomb of violence. Following a fling with his boss’s lover, he’s sent on a routine assignment he knows is a death trap. Yet after a smoking spasm of violence, Roy’s would-be killers are mostly dead and he is mostly alive.

Before Roy makes his getaway, he finds a beaten-up woman in the apartment, and sees something in her frightened, defiant eyes that causes a crucial decision. He takes her with him on the run from New Orleans to Galveston, Texas, permanently entwining their fate along a highway of seedy bars and fleabag hotels, a world of treacherous drifters, pick-up trucks, and ashed-out hopes, with death just a car-length behind.

Nic Pizzolatto’s highly acclaimed, Edgar Award-nominated thriller announces the arrival of a major new talent for fans of Dennis Lehane, James Lee Burke and BREAKING BAD.

‘A good old Southern gothic treat of a road trip through Texas and Louisiana. Think James Lee Burke meets MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL with shades of PARIS, TEXAS’ – Sam Baker, The Pool

‘Terrific dialogue’ – Kirkus

‘Pizzolatto’s insightful portrayal is rough and tumble real. He vividly captures Galveston in all its desperate vulnerability’ – Publishers Weekly

‘A truly original and gifted writer’ – Litro

Author Biography

Nic Pizzolatto is the creator of the hit HBO series True Detective, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, for which he is creator, executive producer, and sole writer. His fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The Oxford American, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, Best American Mystery Stories and several other publications. His work has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award, and his story collection Between Here and the Yellow Sea was named by Poets & Writer’s Magazine as one of the top five fiction debuts of the year.

His first novel, Galveston, was a finalist for the Barnes and Noble 2010 Discover Award and the Edgar Award for best first novel; it won the Spur Award, and received the Prix de Premier Roman L’Etranger for best first novel (foreign) from the French Academy. He has taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, The University of Chicago, and DePauw University.

nicpizzolatto.com