The Trees

Percival Everett

When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive in Money, Mississippi, to investigate a series of brutal murders, they find at each crime scene an unexpected second body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till. After meeting resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist white townsfolk, the MBI detectives suspect these are killings of retribution. Then they discover eerily similar murders taking place in rapid succession all over the country. The past, it seems, refuses to be buried. The uprising has begun. In this provocative page-turner that takes direct aim at racism and police violence, Percival Everett offers a devastating critique of white supremacy and confronts the legacy of lynching in the United States.