Josiah Thibodeaux paints such vivid pictures with his writing -- engaging every sense -- you feel certain he has witnessed these scenes with his own eyes. Fiction? No! These events happened, no doubt. I had the sense he was reporting for those from the past who can't speak and for those of us now who don't know and didn't see.

Josiah Thibodeaux’s work of historical fiction, The Thousand Secrets of the Tishomingo Hotel, opens with a nicely paced, even appropriately leisurely, lead-in to the culture of Tulsa at the time of the book’s central event (1921) and then a decade later, when the book’s central narrative begins, providing along the way plenty of hints about the much-neglected tragedy/crime that occurred there in the worst incident of domestic terrorism in U S history. The author’s choice of presenting the events as a novel populated with intriguingly distinctive and yet very believable, well-detailed characters, promises to make it unmistakably clear that the persons involved—both victims and perpetrators—were real, complex human beings, persons with whom most readers should find it easy to identify. Various tensions surface as the young reporter begins his research for the “puff” story his editor has assigned him, clearly foretelling that the unearthing of this buried secret is a risky, even dangerous undertaking. In fact, the thousand secrets of the Tishomingo Hotel should still trouble the conscience of the reader and of a society that continues to struggle with the underlying causes of this variously named cataclysm —Race Riot, Race Massacre, Race War

I love the snappy dialogue in this chapter. A gripping fictional portrayal of this seminal historical event is much needed. It will help Americans come to terms with their troubled identity.