Under The Fall (Pre-Order August 11th 2026)

Under The Fall by Richard Russo Pre-Order August 11th 2026 

From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Russo, the beloved writer of Empire Falls, comes a riveting, emotionally charged stand-alone novel about friendship, betrayal, and the crimes that small towns never truly forget.

When Tyler Sinclair fled Stone Mountain at eighteen, he left behind everything — an abusive father, a broken home, and the friends he never said goodbye to. Eighteen years later, now the famous frontman of a band called Stone Mountain, Tyler returns for a single-night benefit concert to help his childhood friend Doc, paralyzed after a long-ago accident.

As Tyler climbs back toward the mountain, memories resurface — of love, shame, loyalty, and escape — and he quickly realizes that not everyone has forgiven his disappearance. Old friends await him: Curt, now the town’s chief of police; Deb, Curt’s ambitious new officer; and Freddi, Curt’s wife and Tyler’s former lover, whose tangled history and dangerous secrets will soon ignite a tragedy that threatens to destroy them all.

What begins as a homecoming becomes a reckoning. Long-buried resentments rise, alliances fracture, and a single crime exposes the fragile boundary between justice and vengeance, right and wrong.

Under the Falls is a gripping literary thriller and a deeply compassionate portrait of a rural community haunted by its past. With his trademark insight, wit, and emotional precision, Russo delivers a spellbinding novel about memory, morality, and the inescapable pull of the places that made us.