The Last Talk with Lola Faye, by Thomas H. Cook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; $25)

Over the past 20+ years that I've been reviewing mysteries, there is one writer who I would put near the top of the list of the all time best mystery writers. That writer is Thomas H. Cook. Although he's won awards from his peers (nominated for an Edgar seven times, won once for best novel), he hasn't received the popular attention he deserves. The reason may be that his books are not page turners, filled with gratuitous violence, police procedure, and steamy sex. Indeed, his books work best if you read them slowly, deliberately relishing the language that he uses and pausing frequently to try to enjoy the skill with which he builds up to his stories' final "reveal."

The Last Talk with Lola Faye is a perfect example. Luke Page, once the academic shining star of Glenville, Alabama, never lived up to his early promise.  A historian, he'd written books in which he'd "hoped to portray the physical feel of American history, its tactile core. . .mine would be histories with a heartbeat--palpable, alive, histories with true feeling." His books, however, never conveyed this sense of life. He describes writing each book as "beginning with a passionate concept, then watching as it shrank to a bloodless monograph." He knows now that he probably will never write the books he intended to write, and has become, as his estranged wife described, "a strangely shriveled thing."

Invited to a St. Louis museum to discuss his latest book, Luke is startled to see Lola Faye Gilroy in the audience.  Now a faded, middle aged woman looking a little off, Lola Faye bears little resemblance to the spirited young woman whose jealous husband had murdered Luke's father so many years earlier.

"Are you proud of what you did?" she asks Luke, causing "a quiver of anxiety" to rush through him. Although she explained that she meant getting a fancy education and leaving Glenville, his reaction is a clue that there is much more to her question than what is obvious on the surface.

Luke and Lola Faye meet for a drink, and over the next few hours--and the rest of the book--they talk about the past: what led up to her husband murdering Luke's father, and the tragic events that followed that tragic event. The story unfolds through Luke and Lola Faye comparing notes and filling in information that one or the other did not know at the time. When their conversation and Luke's memories uncovered the whole sad and chilling story, I was in awe of Cook's ability to weave it together so seamlessly.

"'It's Southern gothic, that's for sure,'" Luke tells Lola Faye.'"Families with dark secrets. The war between fathers and sons. Selfishness. Greed. Violence. The debts of the past. Old bills too high to pay, but which keep coming in.'" With Luke's words, Thomas H. Cook neatly sums up his incredible body of work. I simply can't get enough of his books.