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Pete Dexter's National Book Award--winning tour de force tells the mesmerizing story of a shocking crime that shatters lives and exposes the hypocrisies of a small Southern town. The time and place: Cotton Point, Georgia, just after World War II. The event: the murder of a fourteen-year-old black girl by a respected white citizen named Paris Trout, who feels he's done absolutely nothing wrong. As a trial looms, the crime eats away at the social fabric of Cotton Point, through its facade of manners and civility. Trout's indifference haunts his defense lawyer; his festering paranoia warps his timid, quiet wife; and Trout himself moves closer to madness as he becomes obsessed with his cause--and his vendettas. Praise for Paris Trout "A masterpiece, complex and breathtaking . . . [Pete] Dexter portrays his characters with marvelous sharpness."--Los Angeles Times "A psychological spellbinder that will take your...