The Huntsman

by Whitney Terrell (Viking; $25.95)

When a white woman's body is pulled from the river at the beginning of a novel and a black man is wanted for her murder, you expect an old-fashioned thriller. What Terrell provides instead is a Dreiseresque study of Kansas City in the nineties, in all its complicated manners and minutiae. An unsung corner of the American landscape, the city is the real hero here, as white and black, rich and poor, old and young collide. Terrell is not a wholly original writer, but he's excellent at what he does—creating real characters, making them interact in telling ways, and transporting us into his own physical and psychological geography.♦

