Pinterest tracking pixel
If you are having difficulty navigating this website please contact us at member.services@bookofthemonth.com or 1-877-236-8540.
Oops! The page didn’t load right. Please refresh and try again.
All booksThrillerNovember Road
November Road by Lou Berney
Thriller

November Road

Early Release
This is an early release that's only available to our members—the rest of the world has to wait 'til next month to read it.

by Lou Berney

Quick take

A New Orleans mobster who knows too much, a young mother on the run, and the daring escape that might get them both killed.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_FastRead

    Fast read

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_MultipleNarrators

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_Action

    Action-packed

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_Rugged

    Rugged

Why I love it

Plot, setting, and character. It’s a simple three-ingredient recipe—you might call it Satisfying Novel Surprise—yet many (even most!) authors tend to skimp on one or another … or all three. Few works of fiction, in my experience, spin a gripping story and drench it in atmosphere and people it with a relatable, three-dimensional cast. Fewer still do so in perfect proportion.

But Lou Berney’s November Road is no ordinary work of fiction. November, 1963: The country is roiling in the wake of JFK’s murder, and one mob lieutenant suspects he may have unwittingly participated in the crime. He makes a run for the West Coast, inadvertently picking up a runaway housewife and her two daughters along the way. As they light out for coastal California, these four fugitives bond in ways as unexpected (yet credible) as they are poignant (yet exciting).

This altogether wondrous novel resists categorization. It’s a thriller; it’s a period piece; it’s a character study. Above all, though, November Road is an experience—so vivid, so indelible, that it feels as much our story as it does our heroes’. I’m delighted to present to Book of the Month readers a new American classic.

Read less

Synopsis

A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello, Frank Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas to see an old associate—a dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish.

When Guidry sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte—on the run from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband who’s a hopeless drunk—reach her destination.

But fugitives shouldn’t fall in love, because a road isn’t just a road—it’s a trail, and Guidry’s ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.

Read less

Preview

Get an early look from the first pages of Lou Berney's November Road.

Read a sample →

Member thoughts

All (4162)
All (4162)
Love (1316)
Like (2399)
Dislike (447)
4475 ratings
  • 29% Love
  • 54% Like
  • 10% Dislike
    Thriller
    • Blacktop Wasteland
    • The Broken Girls
    • The Family Game
    • All the Dangerous Things
    • The Hunting Party
    • We Were Never Here
    • The Golden Couple
    • The Collective
    • Too Good to Be True
    • Things We Do in the Dark
    • You Are Not Alone
    • Rock Paper Scissors
    • The Push
    • Not a Happy Family
    • A Flicker in the Dark
    • The Last Flight
    • Reckless Girls
    • The House Across the Lake
    • The Wife Upstairs
    • The Last Thing He Told Me
    • The Night She Disappeared
    • The Maidens
    • Everything We Didn't Say
    • Invisible Girl
    • The Paris Apartment
    • The Book of Cold Cases
    • You're Invited
    • The Last Party
    • Dark Places
    • Behind Her Eyes
    • The Alienist
    • Into the Water
    • Girl, Forgotten
    • Pieces of Her
    • The Wife Between Us
    • Then She Was Gone
    • Cross Her Heart
    • The Silent Patient
    • The Winter Sister
    • The Family Remains
    • Before She Knew Him
    • Daisy Darker
    • The Other Woman
    • Necessary People
    • The Family Upstairs
    • The Night Swim
    • The Girl in the Mirror
    • Goodnight Beautiful
    • Girl A
    • The Hunting Wives
    • First Born
    • The Lies I Tell
    • Breathless