Jamie Kornegay lives in the Mississippi Delta, where he moved in 2006 to establish an independent bookstore, TurnRow Book Co. Before that he was a bookseller, events coordinator, and radio show producer at the famous Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. He studied creative fiction under Barry Hannah at the University of Mississippi.Kornegay's 2015 novel is Soil.
One of his five favorite novels with criminals covering their tracks, as shared at The Daily Beast:
Strangers on a Train by Patricia HighsmithRead about another entry on the list.
No one tightens the screws and creates simmering anxiety better and more consistently than Patricia Highsmith. She uses tidyconstructions and deceptively bland characters to lull the reader, but a vague menace is always lurking around the corner. It’s the literary equivalent of a barely audible, high-pitched frequency you can’t locate. When she pulls the rug out, you may be on your ass and still not realize it happened. Strangers on a Train is her debut novel—two strangers meet, one ropes the other into performing criss-cross murders to protect their alibis—and it’s a good entry point to her deep and impressive backlist, which includes such highlights as The Talented Mr. Ripley, This Sweet Sickness, and The Tremor of Forgery.
Strangers on a Train is on Jeff Somers's top five list of timeless old-school thrillers, Stella Gonet's six best best books, Lars Iyer's top ten list of literary frenemies, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best railway journeys in literature.
--Marshal Zeringue
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