Daily Mail

NOVEMBER ROAD

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by Lou Berney (HarperColl­ins £12.99, 320 pp) THIS novel is so compelling it takes your breath away. It is American noir at its bleakest, yet most beguiling. Set against the background of the assassinat­ion of President J. F. Kennedy in November 1963, it describes the fate of New Orleans mob lieutenant Frank Guidry, who is asked by his masters to deliver a car to a lot in Dallas just before the shooting.

In the wake of Kennedy’s death, the mobster senses the hit has been orchestrat­ed by his boss and that he has delivered the shooter’s getaway car. Suddenly, there are a string of killings, and Guidry leaves for las Vegas to save his skin.

So far, so Sopranos — but then he picks up a woman who is on the run, along with her two daughters, from an unhappy marriage.

Guidry uses the beautiful young mother and her girls as camouflage to throw off the hitman on his trail — and an extraordin­ary love affair develops on this road trip across an America in mourning. It brings the story a bitterswee­t poignancy that is heart-breaking.

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