From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick DEACON KING KONG and the National Book Award–winning THE GOOD LORD BIRD, comes a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them.

In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and in front of everybody shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of DEACON KING KONG.