Christina Estes/KJZZ

Burton Barr Library in Phoenix.

At their core, many of James Sallis’ novels focus on crime and they are suspenseful, but they are anything but formulaic. In his latest, Willnot, which was published this week, Sallis introduces Dr. Lamar Hale and other characters in the small town of Willnot, where the remains of several people have been found

"What the book was really about was how we go on with our tiny lives..but while we're doing this all these absolutely horrible things are going on around us over which we have no control," Sallis, a Phoenix resident, said. "I was trying to balance these two things and show these ordinary lives that just went on."