Ruth Cornier is the Reverend James Cornier's daughter in Bottom Springs, Louisiana, where you keep your neighbors close and your secrets even closer. I hesitate to say more than that, because going into this book largely in the dark was the best decision.

What I've come to appreciate most about Winstead is her complete aesthetic buy-in with her writing. This book is like a soap opera, from its dramatic revelations to Ruth's obsession with Twilight, and Winstead's writing reflects that. Whether or not it was intentional, Midnight Is the Darkest Hour evokes the best aspects of David Lynch's iconic Twin Peaks: a small town and a crime, which leads to labyrinthine discoveries of more crimes, more secrets, and of man's capacity of evil. Though Winstead's book is not explicitly supernatural like Twin Peaks is, there is always the barest hint that it might be. And despite each new reveal being slightly more ludicrous than the last, you are on the hook until the book's final, gasp-inducing moment.

But most like Lynch's masterpiece, there is harsh truth and believability within the melodramatic confines of the story. Inside of Winstead's haunting swamp setting is a story about women's pain and subjugation, about religious trauma and the evil lurking among society's most respected figures. It is brilliant because it borders on the absurd--but every reader will recognize the frightening realities buried in each secret.