The seemingly bucolic setting of South Carolina's Low Country reveals its seamier side in Bret Lott's latest novel, a follow-up to 1999's The Hunt Club. Lott continues the story of Huger Dillard, now 27, a college dropout living with his parents, and still clueless as to his calling in life.

Lott paints his main character layer by layer, slowly filling in the details of why he calls his blind father Unc, why he dropped out of UNC at Chapel Hill, and why he and his girlfriend Tabitha separated (she is now a postdoc at Stanford). Injected into this somewhat convoluted domestic drama is a woman's body, discovered as the novel opens by Huger and Unc as they arrive by boat at the members-only golf course attached to their posh community of Landgrave Hall in the middle of the night—the only time Unc can practice his swing without being embarrassed.

The discovery of a woman's partially eaten body in the pluff mud, just as Huger is about to set anchor, is horrific enough, but it's complicated by the fact that Huger is also observed wearing illegal night-vision goggles by two officers at the Naval Weapons Station half a mile away. How Huger obtained those goggles (actually, Unc won them in one of his Thursday night poker games) is just one of the many backstories Lott introduces one by one, each part of his tale of long-buried family secrets, terrorists housed in the local Navy brig and sleeper cells patiently waiting to exact their carefully planned revenge.

Dead Low Tide is being labeled a "literary thriller," which typically is a hard role to fill. It may not be erudite enough for fans of Le Carrv©, or suspenseful enough for followers of Nelson DeMille. But Lott's timely premise—the possibility of terrorist sleeper cells existing for years in unlikely places, waiting for the word to unleash their pent-up hatred—is both shocking and plausible enough to garner its own niche of readers. And the way in which Lott weaves this dark subplot into past events, revealed slowly to both Huger and the reader, makes the conclusion of this portrait of Charleston's darker side even more satisfying.

Best-selling author of Jewel, an Oprah Book Club pick, and a literate sort who has won Pushcart and PEN awards (among others), Lott turned out a literary mystery in 1998 called The Hunt Club. Here at last is a follow-up. When Huger Dillard rows his blind father over to Landgrave Hall, SC, golf course at 2:30 in the morning so that he can practice his swing unobserved, they find a body trapped at low tide. This little venture eventually leads them to the discovery of a terrorist cell. Juicy stuff not just for upscale readers.

This sequel to 1998's The Hunt Club picks up the story of Huger Dillard and his blind father, Unc, in the present. When Unc and Huger discover a dead body during a midnight boating and golfing foray at the local country club, they wonder why U.S. Navy security and the Department of Homeland Security get involved in the case. Father and son soon find their answers as they become unwilling victims in a terrorist plot gone awry, in which terrorist and law enforcement often seem one and the same, and family secrets and Southern mores are intricately woven. VERDICT This literary thriller of the first order grippingly deals with current events while revealing the secrets, ambitions, loves, and fears of a family that readers grow to cherish. Fans of The Hunt Club will want to catch up with Unc and Huger. [See Prepub Alert, 7/18/11.]—Thomas L. Kilpatrick, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

A murder, a scandal, and a dangerous web of secrets make up Lott's 13th novel, the sequel to 1998's The Hunt Club. Huger Dillard, ever opinionated and vocal, narrates the story, punctuating the text with his commentary as he unravels the mystery of Landgrave Hall, a small wealthy community in South Carolina where something important seems to be brewing. Huger (short for Huguenot), at 27, lives in the family home, tending to his blind father, "Unc." When the two of them sneak onto a golf course late at night so that Unc can practice his swing in private, they uncover a body in the mire of low tide, tipping off a series of events that brings armed forces, terrorist activity, and skeletons from the closet careening into motion. Through these events, Huger, initially complacent and seeming to have given up on life, starts to believe that things could be better. "Maybe I wanted to have my own life, to live on my own and not have to ferry Unc through his days, me his chauffeur and caddy and coffee bearer and eyes every day I was alive." The initial discovery and premise of the novel is captivating, but the tale loses steam midway and falters into monotony. The final chapters arrive with a rush of events and information that assemble into a jarring and thrilling outcome, but more clues and tension leading up would guarantee that a reader might actually arrive at the end. (Jan.)