What's left unsaid A novel

Chicago journalist Hannah Williamson, the protagonist of this moving tale of past crimes and present-day secrets from Bleeker (When I'm Gone), buries herself in a low-level newspaper job in Senatobia, Miss., in the wake of several personal and professional upheavals. Hannah discovers new purpose in a series of letters to the editor dating to the 1930s from a young woman named Evelyn, who was paralyzed by a mysterious shooting when she was 14. Hannah teams up with a local middle school teacher to investigate. Their pursuit hinges on unraveling what's left unsaid, both by Evelyn in her letters and by Hannah's family and neighbors, who have spent their life in the small, closely-knit town. Some plot developments, such as a repentant ex begging for a reconciliation, may strike the reader as a trifle pat. But overall, Bleeker sensitively explores rifts and contradictions in the American South that must be regularly negotiated by both the people who have fled it and the people who have chosen to remain there. This works better as social history than mystery. Agent: Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary. (July)