Devilwood

DEVILWOOD opens in 1994, where Wilbur Miller, a veteran cop, has been assigned to the gentler beat of the Alabama Agricultural and Rural Crimes Unit. What begins with him looking for a missing calf amidst rumours of a "painter" (the American word for panther) at large, finds him stumbling upon what seems to be a gruesome crime scene. A bare, mangled foot, covered in blood leads him to discover more blood, everywhere - on the walls, the floor, as far as the eye can see. He is drawn back to events decades prior when several families built an evangelical church under the guidance of a charismatic itinerant preacher, a period of time Miller has been compellingly trying to forget . . .

Beautifully told, DEVILWOOD unfolds with growing menace. Franklin is able to conjure the dark and mysterious forces that shape and sometimes violate our lives-which some may call evil-while also being acutely sensitive to the various ways in which people seek grace and, if they're truly fortunate, occasionally find it.