Red Light Run

A fatal drunk driving accident in the suburbs of Chicago sets in place a series of events that echo through the lives of those close to both the victim and the perpetrator in this radiant novel-in-stories debut from a prize-winning short story writer.

When Sonia, the prominent wife of a local cemetery owner, is killed in the worst accident anyone can remember, Hartley Nolan, a lifelong teetotaler, is hardly the person police expect to find behind the wheel. After all, Hartley’s something of an inspiration in a town that hasn’t seen much luck in decades, the local boy who made it big in Chicago as a commodities trader without ever forgetting his struggling family back home.

But Tower Hill, Illinois, close knit and alive with old rivalries, is fertile ground for resentments. With Hartley up for parole four years after his arrest, an old friend of Sonia’s takes justice into his own hands.

Set in the days leading up to Sonia’s death and those surrounding Hartley’s release from prison, Baird Harper’s linked stories reveal the perspectives of townspeople harboring wildly different knowledge about the same events. Dazzlingly told and teeming with stunning twists, Red Light Run brilliantly unravels the mystery behind the town’s most notorious crime and examines how far its residents will go to rectify it.