Holy City

'Rarely has dysfunctional small-town life been so movingly portrayed.' Daily Express

'A dense, brilliantly rendered novel by a new master of Southern gothic' Kirkus

After a decade of exile precipitated by the tragic death of his mother, Will Seems returns home from Richmond to rural Southern Virginia, taking a job as deputy sheriff in a landscape given way to crime and defeat. But his attempts to start again are wrecked when a brutal homicide claims the life of an old friend and he is forced to face the true reason for his return – to pay an old debt.

Then a man Will knows to be innocent is arrested for his friend's murder, and his boss seems all too happy to wrap up the case and move on. Will must weigh his personal guilt against his public duty and work alongside an unpredictable private detective to help him find the real killer. And, in facing a community that refuses to confront its history, perhaps he can atone for the past.



Henry Wise is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and the University of Mississippi MFA program. A writer across multiple genres, his poetry has been published in Shenandoah, Radar Poetry, Clackamas, Nixes Mate Review, and elsewhere. His non-fiction and photography have appeared in Southern Cultures. Holy City is his first novel.