Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of Gone 'til November by Wallace Stroby

Gone 'til November by Wallace Stroby

Gone 'til November

by Wallace Stroby

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Jan 2010, 304 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

It's late at night when Florida sheriff's deputy Sara Cross arrives at the scene of a roadside shooting along a deserted highway. Another deputy, Billy Flynn, her former partner, who also happens to be her former lover, has fatally shot a twenty-two-year-old man during what started out as a routine traffic stop, and she's the first to arrive on the scene. He claims that the man pulled a gun, and that when he didn’t respond to Billy’s commands to drop it, Billy shot him. Billy is clearly upset, shaken up; Sarah sees the gun in the dead man’s hand and the bag of illegal weapons in the trunk of his car and believes Billy’s actions were justified.

Up north in New Jersey, Mikey-Mike runs a major drug operation and is tightening his hold on the competition, making a deal with a new supplier. Morgan, a middle-aged enforcer for Mikey who’s been in the life too long, would like to make one last score, walk away, and retire for good. Mike asks Morgan to head to Florida to find out what’s holding up his new deal, and Morgan sees the job as a possibility for his last big payday.

As more details of the roadside shooting emerge with Sara's investigation, and as Morgan follows the trail Mikey lays out for him, the two storylines begin to merge into a much darker, more menacing scenario than either Morgan or Sara imagined. Sara, in order to protect herself and her son, must follow the truth no matter where it leads.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Powerful ... Stroby explores moral choices that leave his devastatingly real characters torn between doing nothing and risking everything." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review." - Kirkus Reviews

"Gone 'til November is rock-solid crime fiction that melds compelling characters, crisp writing, and a finely rendered portrait of Old Florida, the state's thinly populated, less-storied interior." - Booklist

"Sure to appeal to fans of Edna Buchanan and John Sandford." - Library Journal

"In Gone 'til November, Wallace Stroby's mastery of character and dialogue is mated to a hellacious narrative engine. His heroine, Sara Cross, is a wonderful creation." - George Pelecanos

"This is a first-rate novel, with characters who live on in the reader's mind long after the book is finished. I always expect great things from Stroby, and Gone 'til November is a significant addition to an already impressive body of work." - Laura Lippman

"In these days of megaformulaic blockbusters, it seems almost impossible to find a novel that not only has depth of characterization, but a compelling plot. Gone 'til November achieves both and seamlessly. ... This novel sings, darkly and irresistibly." - Ken Bruen

This information about Gone 'til November was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Wallace Stroby

Wallace Stroby is an award-winning journalist and a former editor at the Newark Star-Ledger. This is his third novel, following The Heartbreak Lounge and the Barry Award--finalist The Barbed-Wire Kiss. He lives in New Jersey.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Gone 'til November, try these:

  • The Dark We Know jacket

    The Dark We Know

    by Wen-yi Lee

    Published 2025

    About this book

    From Gillian Flynn Books, a lyrical young adult horror by debut author Wen-yi Lee that's perfect for fans of She Is a Haunting, Stephen King's IT, and The Haunting of Hill House.

  • We Deserve Monuments jacket

    We Deserve Monuments

    by Jas Hammonds

    Published 2024

    About this book

    Family secrets, a swoon-worthy romance, and a slow-burn mystery collide in We Deserve Monuments, a YA debut from Jas Hammonds that explores how racial violence can ripple down through generations.

  • City Under One Roof jacket

    City Under One Roof

    by Iris Yamashita

    Published 2024

    About this book

    A stranded detective tries to solve a murder in a tiny Alaskan town where everyone lives in a single high-rise building, in this gripping debut by an Academy Award–nominated screenwriter.

We have 7 read-alikes for Gone 'til November, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
Who Said...

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.