The Occidental Book of the Dead
On sale
28th September 2026
Price: £29.99
The Wire meets Colson Whitehead in this audacious, darkly funny and dazzlingly innovative literary crime masterpiece about a black police officer in Atlanta, Georgia – and the fatal shooting of a suspect
George Washington Jonson has been in the Atlanta police force for a decade, patrolling the streets he grew up on and managing to build relationships within the force – especially with Tucker, the veteran police officer and self-described ‘redneck’ who taught Jonson the ropes.
Now it’s 2005 and Jonson himself is tasked with training hot-headed rookie recruits. One night out on patrol with his trainee, Utner, a split-second confrontation with a white teenager takes a violent turn and Utner shoots the teenager dead. As the resulting furore mounts to a fever pitch, it threatens to expose the complex nest of lies that seethes beneath the entire city, and order must be restored.
So far, so Hollywood.
But then a dizzying somersault in the novel’s structure upends the narrative and begins an even darker, more complicated and provocative story about racism, power and corruption – building to an unforgettable portrait of a nation divided.
George Washington Jonson has been in the Atlanta police force for a decade, patrolling the streets he grew up on and managing to build relationships within the force – especially with Tucker, the veteran police officer and self-described ‘redneck’ who taught Jonson the ropes.
Now it’s 2005 and Jonson himself is tasked with training hot-headed rookie recruits. One night out on patrol with his trainee, Utner, a split-second confrontation with a white teenager takes a violent turn and Utner shoots the teenager dead. As the resulting furore mounts to a fever pitch, it threatens to expose the complex nest of lies that seethes beneath the entire city, and order must be restored.
So far, so Hollywood.
But then a dizzying somersault in the novel’s structure upends the narrative and begins an even darker, more complicated and provocative story about racism, power and corruption – building to an unforgettable portrait of a nation divided.
Reviews
In T. Geronimo Johnson's Atlanta, racial tensions percolate and the system rarely bends to demands for justice. In his latest novel, the author of Welcome to Braggsville, a National Book Award finalist, explores the moral calculus of a Black cop who's implicated in the killing of a white teenager. In a narrative that unfolds over two decades, Johnson asks big questions about identity, corruption, and American ideals