FFB: The Last Talk with Lola Faye -- Thomas H. Cook

Thomas H. Cook is one of those writers who's so good that you wonder why he's not better known.   Often, as in the case of The Last Talk with Lola Faye, they're about crimes in the past that have an effect on the present, and they're always beautifully written and paced.

This one is narrated by Lucas Paige, a man who escaped his Alabama hometown, went to Harvard, and became an author and historian whose books have never been the kind of significant works he'd hoped to write and whose personal life is even less successful.  

One night at a book signing in St. Louis, a woman appears.  She's Lola Faye Gillroy, originally from Lucas' hometown, and she's traveled there specifically to see him and to get a book signed.  But that's not the only reason.  She's there to have a talk with him, and most of the novel is just that, two people having a talk, one that's filled with flashbacks to the past.

It's quite a past, as we gradually discover, and it involves murder, guilt, blame, and misunderstanding.  What we believe to be true about the past might not turn out to be true at all.  Cook reveals his secrets carefully and masterfully, creating a great deal of suspense along the way.  What does Lola Faye really want?  What's her real reason for coming to St. Louis?  You should read the book to find out.  It's a good one.