Summary

The introduction to the novel, titled “Shelby County”, begins in Texas in 2016 with Geneva Sweet visiting the graves of her husband and son, both named Joe Sweet. She carefully tended to the graves, leaving a plate of fried pies behind for her son and playing a Muddy Waters record for her husband. She had a brief conversation with the groundskeeper Mitty before going back to her car. She drove back to Lark, a small community in East Texas, and arrived at her store called Geneva Sweet’s Sweets, which she shared with a barber named Isaac Snow and another woman named Wendy. Upon arriving, two regular customers, Huxley and Tim, informed her that Sheriff Van Horn had arrived to investigate the appearance of the body of a white girl in the bayou behind the store. Huxley lamented that they were already...