The Occidental Book of the Dead - October 2026 PREM1ER Edition

About the book

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

'Endlessly entertaining' Attica Locke, author of Bluebird, Bluebird

'Johnson asks big questions about identity, corruption and American ideals'
TIME, Most Anticipated Books of 2026

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.