John Tayman

A solid punch of swampy Southern noir, this novel (from the writer and creator of True Detective) follows the last epic slide of Roy Cady, 40-year-old hit man, as he attempts do a little good before he goes entirely bad.

An entertaining mash-up of genres, combining your standard apocalyptic dystopia (pandemic wipes out America; survivors go feral; battles ensue) with some nifty literary flourishes (the featured group of survivors are an artists troupe, touring the new-formed wasteland performing Shakespeare and symphonies to the walking wounded).

A Pulitzer Prize-winning story of a frumpish middle-aged book hunter, who almost by accident sparked the Renaissance and the birth of modern thought—and made possible the work of Darwin, Einstein, Galileo, and Shakespeare.