Alabama, June 1956. Silas Mercer deals in facts. As Blackwell's undertaker and county coroner, he writes down what the dead tell him, and he has never signed his name to a lie.
Then the Reverend Eli Thibault's revival rolls down Highway 98 in a cloud of red dust, promising a miracle to every sick and desperate soul in the county. Silas knows a show when he sees one. So does eleven-year-old Toby Boyd, who drags a steel brace through the straw while his mother beats a tambourine until her hands bleed.
On opening night a barefoot child walks in off the highway and down the aisle. The preacher lays a hand on him, and the fake miracle turns horribly real. The tent freezes in the summer heat. A town councilman drops dead. And something long and dark follows the child back out into the night.
By morning the sheriff has a lie to tell and a man to pin it on: Silas's oldest friend, a shell-shocked veteran who never hurt a soul. All Silas has is a weather ledger, a broken brace, and a body that says what really happened.
True Believers is the first book in the Blackwell Revival Trilogy, a Southern Gothic tale of faith, fraud, and the thing that answers when the wrong man calls.