Under the Falls

Falls #2

by Richard Russo

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls returns with his first stand-alone novel since Chances Are . . . —a spellbinding page-turner about a crime in a small town that exposes long-held secrets and betrayals among a group of lifelong friends

When Tyler Sinclair left Stone Mountain at eighteen, he had no plans of returning. With only a duffel bag full of clothes, a few bucks stolen from his father’s dresser, and a guitar, his most prized possession, Tyler disappeared without so much as a goodbye. Eighteen years later, and Tyler, now the frontman of a famous band aptly named Stone Mountain, finds himself returning to his hometown for a one-night-only benefit concert to support his old friend, Doc, who lost feeling in his legs following a childhood accident. As Tyler ascends the mountain, memories of his childhood come rushing back—memories of his abusive father and despondent mother, of the friends he left behind—and he quickly learns that, for many people on Stone Mountain, the past does not feel like so long ago, and not everyone has been eagerly awaiting Tyler’s return.

At the concert, resentment simmers just beneath the surface, and Tyler finds himself confronted with faces new and old: there’s Curt, Tyler’s childhood best friend, now Stone Mountain’s chief of police, and his star officer, Deb, an out-of-towner who may have bitten off more than she can chew by accepting a job in Stone Mountain. And then there’s Freddi, Curt’s wife and Tyler’s former lover, a woman whose questionable dealings and fraught history with Tyler will become the catalyst for a tragedy that will upend each of their lives and threaten to validate Tyler’s worst fear: that “Stone Mountain is the kind of place you might escape from once, if you’re lucky, but not twice.”

Under the Falls is at once a propulsive thriller, a gut-wrenching portrait of a tight-knit rural community undone by the sins of its past, and an unflinchingly honest depiction of how porous the line between right and wrong, good versus evil, can become. A stunning, deeply empathetic novel, one that takes Russo’s penchant for character-driven drama to thrilling new heights.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Thriller, Friendship, Adult Fiction, Family

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 11, 2026

About the author

RICHARD RUSSO is the author of seven previous novels; two collections of stories; and Elsewhere, a memoir. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries.

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Russo is a favorite of mine. I’ve read and loved all of his novels. His forte is books about small towns with characters whose lives are shaped by the place , by their relationships with one another, as much as specific events. This novel is one of those books . I knew going into it that it was described as a crime/thriller. Even though this is not a genre I enjoy reading, I couldn’t resist because - well it’s Richard Russo. I’m going to chalk up my three stars and not more to the genre. I can’t give it less even though I didn’t fully enjoy it because I found elements of his writing that I love . From the beginning the reader is invited to the place, the past, taking us along with characters connected by their past - by shared trauma, friendship, by love, but also resentment and guilt. For more plot details you can read the description.

I received a copy of this from Knopf through NetGalley.

[Christopher Febles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Advanced Review Copy

The author of one of my favorite all-time books, Nobody's Fool, returns by stepping into a new genre: murder-mystery.

Tyler Sinclair is the lead singer of the famous rock band Stone Mountain, so named after the Rust-Belt upstate New York town in which he grew up. He returns for a tour stop and visits with Doc, a man who suffered a spinal injury he incurred in a dangerous stunt with Tyler when they were kids. At the concert he also comes across his old friend Curt, now the Chief of Police. Curt’s wife, Freddi, was someone Tyler was in love with way back then, and now she’s involved in something awfully fishy.

Trying to leave town, Tyler’s limo is run off the road by a familiar-looking car. Two people die, his girlfriend and bandmate Beth is critically injured, and he ends up in a hospital also desperately hurt. Looks like an accident until Curt’s deputy, Deb, looks into it. All might not be what it seems, and all those past secrets and misdeeds might come back to haunt them all…



This is one of Russo’s shorter books, coming in just around two-fifty. It reads pretty smoothly, with lots of introspection but done with clear, easy-to-grasp prose. The main characters’ rationale makes sense for the most part. The pain of the past is evident and tactile.

Mystery isn’t something I’d have expected from Russo, but he does a good job with the basic elements. The action is front-heavy, with a big swath of conversations and inner monologues right in the middle. The climax builds where it should and with plenty of swift movements and twists. He digs deep into motivation, allowing ghosts to appear and mess things up for everyone. The plot felt disjointed and confusing at times, causing me to backtrack once in a while. Memories, implanted in the multi-perspective format, interfered with the real events. I wished for just a few very clear narratives that would explain things a bit more clearly.

The characters seem not very redeemable, and some not likeable. In his past works I found the villains to have a comical side, but not here at all. Freddi is just awful, and I wasn’t sure I understood why. But there’s a seriousness and heft that bummed me out. So, I suppose nasty characters doing iffy things was kind of the point.

The setting is important here, perhaps even more so than in previous novels. Russo seems to lean hard into the book’s identity with depressed upstate. Everyone’s so messed up, so mixed up with crime and violence and jealousy, partly because of the poor economy and racism and classism. That was a theme that good, but again: I wanted more mystery.

The Acknowledgements state that this was a script for a TV pilot that didn’t make it through the writer’s strike. Maybe that would’ve helped the enjoyment here: the visuals might’ve made the setting and the crime elements pop.

(Also, when I heard “Stone Mountain,” I thought of the place in Georgia. So, I was confused. Was another town name considered?)

Still, Russo can write. He can put images in my mind and make me think. I sure hope he comes back to this setting with characters just as interesting as the ones he’d created in the past.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review. Under the Falls will be released August 11, 2026.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really don't know what happened here. Richard Russo has long been ol' reliable for me. His books are funny and heartwarming and full of curmudgeonly and flawed but lovable characters. This book, which was originally a pilot script for a tv show, is a departure and not a welcome one.

I knew when I began reading and found that part of the story is told by a twentysomething Black woman (for those not in the know, Russo is a 76 year-old white man) that things were not looking good. Maybe the story would have worked better in its original form, as a serialized tv show?

Some Lingering Questions (SPOILERS ahead, be warned)
-If Tyler hated his hometown so much and wanted to distance himself, why did he name his band after it?
-Did the concertgoers, like, bring cartons of eggs into the concert?
-Did Doc really die how they said he did? He's used as a plot device and a reason for Tyler to return then quickly discarded and forgotten.
-Why is Beth so mad at Tyler? Even if he called Curtis Jr. while THEIR LIMO WAS ACTIVELY BEING PUSHED OFF A MOUNTAIN, the accident was already in motion.
-Why did Freddi tell Curtis Jr. about who she suspected his father was? She doesn't even know for sure, and she didn't tell her husband.
-Speaking of Freddi, there is nothing about this character or her motivations that I understand.
-How did Tyler figure out it was Curtis Jr. and not Freddi who was driving the hearse?
-What was Curtis Jr. planning to do when he bumped the limo off the mountain? Was he intending to kill its four inhabitants? Much like Freddi's, his motivations are a mystery. And we have so little of him in the novel that it's hard to guess.

[Cindy (leavemetomybooks) · Rating 1 out of 5]

* thanks to Knopf for the NetGalley review copy (pub date: August 2026)

DNF @ 17% because omfg this is tedious

[AndaReadsTooMuch · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have so many questions. I think this was a murder mystery? Maybe? But nothing was really solved. And everyone but our main character was the problem, evidently. This was all over the place and absolutely none of it made any sense.

Tyler grew up in Stone Mountain, which according to this is in the Adirondacks, but sounds more like Stone Moutnain GA to me. It was not a happy life, his dad was an abuser, and opportunities were limited to say the least. Tyler wanted to be a musician so he leaves one night without saying goodbye to start his life. He makes it big and returns to town to hold a benefit concert for a friend that was paralyzed when they were younger. Then, everything falls apart.

A list of questions I had while reading. Beware, spoilers below.

Why again did they run the limo off the mountain? Because Tyler got famous after he left without saying goodbye? And this is reason to try to kill a car full of famous people? And hold a grudge about it for 20 years?
Why tf was Freddi such a reprehensible person? And why did Russo constantly harp on her being Black? What do those two things have to do with each other?
Also, the guy with the MAGA hat actively taking orders from Freddi…. Uh, I don’t think that’s how it works?
Beth was such a nonentity, why was she even there? She was with Tyler, making music, then didn’t want to ever see him again after an accident happened in which he was also injured, but then takes him back to help him get over his opioid addiction? Say what?
Curt was the saddest character of all. So desperate for human connection, but he was awful as a human being. Yes, do look the other way while your wife trafficks drugs when you are the chief of police. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
So Freddi and her son get away… and face no consequences because Curt takes the full blame? How about no?
And wtf was Stone Mountain, Harlem Edition? Mentioned it twice and only showed 2 people in the neighborhood.
I still don’t know if Doc died the way they said he did. What was the point of him dying? And did Tyler really intentionally push him causing the injury that paralyzed Doc?

I still don’t quite fully understand what I read. I don’t know what the point was, exactly other than a misery tour.

Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for the gifted eARC. All opinions are my own.

[Margot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is very sub-par for such a good writer as Russo. Curt is the only interesting character. The plot is pretty predictable. I think it needs better editing as there are way too many sentences ending with question marks. I see at the end it was originally a pilot for a tv series that did not survive the writers’ strike. Russo should have passed on it. I think he generally aims for depth in his novels. There is also zero humor and he can be a master of sarcasm clever ridicule of human nature. I am hoping it will be cleaned up before the release date next year.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. Being a Richard Russo fan, I was excited to read his latest-a mystery/thriller which is definitely a departure from his other books. It was a quick read, memorable characters, vivid descriptions and a satisfying ending. Try it when it comes out in August.

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Distance Between Staying and Saving:
On Richard Russo’s “Under the Falls”
In Stone Mountain, friendship survives not because two men can repair what they have done to each other, but because they finally stop confusing love with the power to make things right.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | August 14th, 2026


Behind the falls, Curt can do nothing to repair what Tyler has seen at home, so he does the smaller thing the novel will spend decades complicating: he stays close without trying to take control.

During the first rescue in Richard Russo’s “Under the Falls,” nobody gets saved, exactly. Eleven-year-old Tyler Sinclair has watched his father beat his mother and fled behind a waterfall, where the roar swallows whatever he might say. His best friend Curt finds him there. Curt cannot stop the violence, repair Tyler’s family or make the boy feel brave. He can sit beside him. He can tell him there was nothing a child could have done. He can promise that Tyler will not face everything alone. It is enough. The trouble starts later, when staying beside someone no longer feels like enough.

Eighteen years on, Tyler has escaped Stone Mountain in every measurable way, although the town has followed him into his band name, his songs and his guilt. He is rich and famous, returning to the Adirondacks for a benefit concert for Tim “Doc” Dockery, another childhood friend, left paraplegic after a rope-swinging accident at the local falls. Tyler was the boy who dragged Doc from the water. Doc now drives a customized orange hearse and has become a virtuoso of gallows humor. He is also less grateful for the heroic arrangement than everyone around him would prefer. He takes Tyler back to the abandoned campground, reminds him that Tyler gave the shove that sent him toward the dam, and tells him that some locals resent more than his success. Tyler has taken Stone Mountain’s humiliations, jokes, griefs and private histories and turned them into songs. His defense comes quickly: he has helped people be seen. Doc leaves him with the question he has spent eighteen years avoiding: seen by whom, and on whose terms?


Doc’s adapted orange hearse arrives first as a joke and an assertion of independence, then slowly becomes something else entirely, turning the novel’s funniest machine into one of its most consequential pieces of evidence.

Most novels would stop there and have plenty to do. Russo adds a riot, a deadly limousine crash, a compromised police chief, a drug operation, uncertain paternity, kidnapping, opioid dependence and enough misconduct to keep a county courthouse busy for a season. The plot moves briskly, but its best shocks are rarely the ones that belong in an evidence bag. Who drove the pursuing vehicle matters. More interesting is what Curt needs to believe about Tyler, what Tyler needs to believe about his own departure, and how long each man can keep a cherished version of the past alive once the facts start pecking holes in it.

Everything in the title keeps falling. Doc hits the dam. Tyler’s signature song is “The Long Fall.” The limousine goes through a guardrail. Tyler later falls into addiction. Stone Mountain itself has been losing altitude in another sense, watching public life contract while private wealth retreats behind gates. Then there is the quieter drop, the one that comes when a flattering account of yourself stops holding your weight. Russo is too practical a novelist to turn the falls into a vaporous symbol machine. Water is cold, dangerous, privately controlled, seasonally dammed, argued over and finally restored. His metaphors keep their work boots on.

The town’s class argument is easiest to see in water. Russo’s prologue drives the reader toward the Adirondacks through prosperous resort communities and then farther into a place where the amusement park has closed, a school wing sits empty and businesses have failed. Beauty remains abundant; access to it does not. Doc explains what happened to the old campground dam. Wealthier summer residents downstream complained that it deprived them of water, helped get it removed and then enjoyed a private replacement of their own. Year-round residents, Doc says, keep finding themselves farther upstream. No sociology seminar is required. The abandoned amusement park sharpens the point: a place that once let valley families feel rich for an afternoon now sits with its rides stripped and rusting. Prosperity did not become nostalgic there; it packed up. Russo occasionally reaches for contemporary shorthand when characters talk politics, but he is better when economics becomes geography. The people who stayed are not merely Tyler without ambition. They inhabit a place whose roads out are easier to describe than to take.

Russo is best at the sentence that changes its mind halfway through. He favors longish, conversational lines with room for qualification, retreat, second thoughts and the joke deployed just before self-knowledge becomes unbearable. His characters rarely think in straight lines. A belief appears, develops an exception, encounters an inconvenient memory, changes its name and returns wearing a more respectable coat. Curt, especially, is a master of this interior housekeeping. One supposedly reasonable exception for somebody he loves prepares the ground for the next. Russo’s free-indirect style catches motive laundering itself into principle. Its weakness grows from the same habit: occasionally the sentence keeps explaining after the scene has already done the work.

It also helps that nobody here can resist a joke. Doc jokes about his wheelchair and hearse. Tyler wisecracks by reflex. The band gets distracted by dopey arguments about the Kinks. Curt meets embarrassment with ruefulness; Deb, with impatience. The humor keeps damaged people from becoming exhibits labeled Damage. More importantly, it shows how they function while the floor is giving way. Nobody schedules a solemnity appointment before making a bad decision.

Plot works the way those sentences do: a detail arrives, gets misfiled, then comes back with a second meaning. Doc’s orange hearse begins as a joke and becomes evidence. Beth’s frantic “Call him” sounds like panic until Tyler understands whom she meant. Mud on Curt’s pants is merely mud until Deb realizes it dried before his supposed arrival at the crash site. Sacred Heart Chapel first appears as the abandoned place where Tyler discovered what a guitar could sound like in a resonant room; later it becomes the site of his teenage affair with Freddi, then a prospective home, then a prison. Even the pinky promise between Tyler and Curt changes jobs. Childhood covenant becomes awkward adult reenactment and, finally, a gesture neither man needs.


At the abandoned Tilt-a-Whirl, Curt stands inside the ruins of both a hometown pleasure and a story he has told himself for years, finally testing whether the nobler version of Tyler was ever more than the version he needed.

As in Dennis Lehane’s “Mystic River,” childhood loyalty becomes the submerged architecture of adult crime, but Russo is warmer and less fatalistic. He is interested in what happens after people discover how heavily they have edited the past for emotional survival. Ann Patchett’s “Commonwealth” illuminates a different pressure: shared private life becoming one person’s artistic property. Tyler has not merely left Stone Mountain. He has taken it with him, converted it into lyrics, stage identity and cultural capital, then treated that conversion as evidence of affection. The grievance is awkward precisely because Tyler is not entirely wrong. Art can preserve what a place cannot, and Tyler’s songs have carried Stone Mountain farther than most of its residents will ever travel. But the same act can turn shared history into one person’s property. The royalties, after all, know where to go.

Protection becomes Curt’s favorite loophole. He protects Freddi, their son Curtis Jr., Tyler, and the local accommodations by which Stone Mountain muddles through. Some of this is admirable; that is the problem. Curt is still the boy who sat beside Tyler under the falls. He is also the police chief who learns how easily discretion can become concealment. His tragedy is not that his virtues disappear. It is that they become ungoverned. Loyalty becomes permission. Mercy becomes impunity. Before long, love itself starts issuing exemptions.

Against Curt’s instinct stands Deb, the younger officer whose affection for him does not exempt him from her attention. Russo does not make her spotless. She can admire Curt, recognize the fatherly place he has occupied in her imagination, investigate him and disappoint him without deciding that everything good she once saw must have been fraudulent. When she can know what Curt has done and still call him good, the question is not whether misconduct vanishes. It does not. The question is whether judgment requires her to erase every earlier act of decency as well. Deb’s answer has weight because she reaches it after the evidence.


At the crash site, Deb notices that Curt’s mud has dried before the ground around him has, and a nearly invisible discrepancy becomes the difference between caring for someone and protecting him from what the evidence says.

Despite Russo’s generosity toward compromised people, he does not distribute that generosity evenly. Tyler and Curt receive enormous interior acreage in which motive, shame, loyalty, desire and culpability can coexist without hardening into a verdict. Freddi, though she drives much of the late plot, gets less room in which to become similarly irreducible. Early on, her grief for Doc and her complicated marriage suggest a richer center of consciousness, especially when Curt has to admit that what he read as sexual secrecy may partly have been ordinary devotion to a sick friend. Later, as Freddi becomes tied to the crash, the drug operation, Tyler’s abduction, the paternity secret and the book’s most troubling sexual encounter, she increasingly becomes the person whose choices force the men to discover themselves. A book wary of flattering stories gives its men a surprising amount of explanatory shelter.

It gets harder to wave that imbalance away in Sacred Heart, where Tyler is kidnapped, beaten and kept impaired with opioids before another sexual encounter with Freddi. Russo later has Tyler resist the clean comfort of describing himself only as victim. He insists that, once the drugs were available, he participated in his addiction, and he refuses to pretend that his old desire for Freddi had vanished. Russo wants him to recover agency without pretending coercion never happened. That is a difficult distinction worth attempting. But the scene is operating under badly asymmetrical power, while Freddi remains comparatively opaque. The result is not complexity so much as an unresolved blur at the exact point where the book needs the clearest eyesight. That matters because elsewhere Russo is so good at distinguishing feeling responsible from actually being responsible. Here those categories begin to slide over one another.


Sacred Heart has been Tyler’s refuge, rehearsal room, secret and imagined home before it becomes his prison, turning the chapel’s narrowing architecture into the novel’s darkest test of what happens when shelter becomes control.

Meanwhile, the late plot begins to collect hardware. Everett, Tyler’s captivity, the narcotics, Deb’s armed confrontation, Curt’s gun and the widening investigation all keep the pages turning, but the characters are already interesting enough sitting in parked cars and revising the stories of their lives. They do not always need another weapon in the room. The project began as a television pilot, which helps account for its appetite for reversals and cliff-edge transitions. Still, the quieter scenes have set a harder standard. An event should expose character before it merely raises the volume.

In quieter scenes, Russo does not need the hardware. Curt’s visit to the abandoned amusement park, where he stands near the Tilt-a-Whirl and finally interrogates the cherished explanation of Tyler’s departure, is one of the book’s best passages. For years Curt has preferred a beautiful theory: Tyler loved Freddi but loved Curt enough to leave rather than destroy his friend’s life. Now he permits the less flattering possibility that Tyler simply took what he wanted, pursued fame and left everyone else behind. The scene does not solve Tyler. It exposes Curt. He needs the nobler Tyler because that Tyler protects the meaning of Curt’s own loyalty.

The epilogue puts the guns away. Nine months later, the campground has been repaired and the dam rebuilt. Tyler returns with a cane, a damaged voice, a history of opioid addiction and a career no longer organized around his own indispensability. Beth has moved more fully into the foreground as a performer. Curt has lost his job, endured legal consequences and discovered, to his own surprise, that punishment can feel cleaner than endlessly maintaining the life he has compromised himself to preserve. Physical restoration is everywhere. Human restoration is nowhere.

Russo refuses the satisfying click of a laboratory answer on Curtis Jr.’s paternity. Tyler knows he could be the boy’s biological father. Curt knows it too. What Curt needs is recognition, and Tyler finally gives it: Curt is Junior’s father because Curt has done the work of fatherhood. Biology can complicate a family without being allowed to overrule the life that family has actually lived. Here Russo’s fondness for explanation earns its keep, because the distinction is not a twist to be solved but a claim about which facts deserve governing power.

Only then does Russo return Tyler and Curt to the childhood promise. Once they linked pinkies and promised to be best friends forever, as children do when they mistake sincerity for authority over the future. As adults they have betrayed, protected, deceived, rescued and disappointed each other enough to know better. They do not repeat the gesture. They do not promise forever. Their friendship becomes credible precisely when it stops making claims on eternity.


At the restored falls, Tyler and Curt leave the childhood pinky promise where it belongs, allowing friendship to survive on terms smaller than forever and more difficult to fake: presence without guarantee.

Put together, the strengths and costs leave “Under the Falls” at 84/100, or 4/5 stars. Russo’s comic suppleness, character intelligence and unusually earned ending outweigh the late machinery, occasional over-explanation and thinner treatment of Freddi without making those weaknesses disappear. The crime plot supplies the motion. What lingers is a smaller question with fewer sirens in it: how do you care for someone without quietly appointing yourself the manager of their consequences?

On the last pages, the water is running again. The dam has been rebuilt. Tyler and Curt sit near the place where one boy once learned that being saved could mean nothing more dramatic than having somebody remain beside him. After everything these men have tried to do for one another, that is the kind of help the novel finally trusts. They stay.


My In-Process Watercolor Studies


All-Character Watercolor One-Sheet


Emblematic Composition & Negative-Space Thumbnail Sheet


Water, Figure & Edge-Behavior Watercolor Study


Hand-Lettering & Border Integration Study


Doc-Mobile Object, Color & Mechanics Study


First Underdrawing Pencil Drawing


First Underdrawing Pencil Drawing with First Wash of Watercolor

All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
Watercolors are done on 140lb vellum and then scanned into the computer using an Epson scanner. From there, they are finalized in Procreate. All art and opinions are my own.

[Amy Spencer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok, how did this one get past an editor? Or, basically anyone? Not to ruin the “story” but there are so many “are you serious” moments I couldn’t finish the book. I could give 7 examples in the first 50 pages that make no sense. Time is too short for nonsense stories pretending to actually be a real storyline. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 40%. This is nowhere near the level of writing we usually get from Richard Russo. The premise was a good one, but the way the story unfolds, the way the characters interact,the tedious inner monologues and the choppy, uneven writing were enough for me to give up on this one. Maybe it would work as it was intended, as a serialized television production, but as a novel it suffers from a lack of heart and the depth required to keep readers engaged.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if the mistakes of your childhood haunted you forever ?

Tyler, a rockstar, who ran away from his past and small town life, comes back “home”, against his better judgement, to put on a concert to raise funds for an old friend from the past. Quickly, it’s made evident, that grudges from the past are still quite strong, and when things take a shocking turn, Tyler realizes that old wrongs won’t stay hidden forever.

I really enjoyed this character driven thriller that puts the question between right and wrong at the forefront of the story.

The story alternates between three points of view- Tyler, the rockstar, Curt, Tyler’s former best friend, and now chief of police, and Deb, a young police officer, still just doing her best to find her place in the world. All three have very different experiences, and viewpoints on life, which really helps to make the story interesting.

While definitely full of thrills and shocking moments, this story really looks closely at relationships and the effect they can have on one’s life forever.

If you made a mistake when you were younger, is that more forgivable because you didn’t know better? Or perhaps, is it only forgivable if you own up to that mistake?

Read this story now if you love thrillers with heart, that make you question who is good, and who is truly evil.

I have never read a Russo book previously, but I will definitely be checking out Empire Falls next, this book was so full of heart!

Thank you to the author, Richard Russo, and the publisher, Knopf, for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

[Lynn Krueger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Knopf and NetGalley for the advanced reader copies of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Happy pub week! This book was a small town setting and just like most small towns, we have secrets. Secrets abound! Our main characters are Tyler Sinclair, a famous musician who left Stone Mountain with a single bag and no goodbyes, Curt, his best friend who is now chief of police in Stone Mountain, Deb, the rookie cop who can't ignore her suspicions, and Freddi, Curt's wife who also maybe had a secret thing with Tyler back in the day.

When Tyler's band, aptly named Stone Mountain, returns to the town for a charity event to raise money for "Doc" who was injured in an accident at the Falls back when Tyler still lived in town, we have the initial strike of the match on this slow burn implosion of secrets and identities. This book was the perfect length at around 250 pages. I love a short and sweet book. While there is small town crime, it's not much of a mystery and more of a character study on the various characters. I am a literary fiction lover so for me this was great, but I just wanted to offer that caveat, that this is not so much a mystery/thriller but more of a character study of people in a small town reeling from various traumatic events, and hiding lots of secrets.

I really liked how Stone Mountain itself was almost it's own character. I also enjoyed the quick chapters and varying POVs as this kept things moving and interesting. I would recommend to those who love that small town vibe with secrets and tension.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Even in a shattered world, it's possible for tomorrow to be better than today."

Tyler Sinclair is a rock star and the frontman of a band named Stone Mountain - the namesake of the small town he grew up in. The irony is that after Tyler left Stone Mountain at eighteen he never went back... until the events that occurred in Under the Falls, that is. You see, Stone Mountain's band manager Jason pushes Tyler and the gang to head to Stone Mountain to do a one-night-only benefit concert for Tyler's former childhood pal Doc, who wound up severely injured after a childhood accident. But what's supposed to be a single night of rock and roll and fundraising tuns into more than what Tyler bargained for when a several unexpected and unfortunate events unfold. "Stone Mountain is the kind of place you might escape from once, if you’re lucky, but not twice."

This book tried way too hard to be thrilling, dramatic, traumatic, and the like. Yet it really missed the mark on all counts. Every single element of this book was beyond predictable. I don't want to blatantly write spoilers in this review, but I'm sure any reader could figure out exactly what was going to unfold as it did so. Of course Doc's childhood accident is tied to why Tyler didn't want to return to Stone Mountain. And the fact that his former bestie became the Chief of Police... why don't you, dear reader, take a gander at if maybe, just maybe, he might be a little bit crooked?

To top it all off, the ending didn't even really close all the loops. Even if the overarching plot was predictable, the nuances weren't explained in the end. Womp, womp.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up.

My 3 stars may be a bit generous, but there is a decent story here about friendship and revisiting the past. It’s just not told in the most effective manner.

The book starts out with a great representation of a depressed upstate NY town. It is classic Richard Russo. From there, the story devolves into something somewhat sloppy. Russo is known for his crisp characterizations and descriptions of settings. There are scenes in this book that make no sense or seem disconnected. When reading the author’s acknowledgments at the end, the reader learns that this was originally a script for a pilot that never got made. That explains a lot. There are things that seem to be missing that would be filled in visually on television.

A couple of notes for Mr. Russo:

1. It is time to retire the word “cripple” when referring to a person with a physical disability. It is considered offensive.

2. Cell phones don’t ring busy.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Kelsey Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A special thank you to AA Knopf for the ARC of this book!

This book itched my summer thriller need with this fast-past jarring story about a group of friends who had a series of tragic happenstances that left Tyler packing his bags 18 years ago. Now Tyler is back as a famous musician, having composed about his life in the Adirondack mountains and is on tour. Not everyone is excited to have him back however, and the old past is quickly dug up and grudges are violently held.

I really was kept on my toes and enjoyed this one! I enjoyed the multiple POV and feel like it would make a fantastic audiobook! Definitely for fans of God of the Woods, Heartwood, etc.

Publishes August 11th!

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a Richard Russo fan, but I feel like he didn’t write this book. The character development was shallow at best. I felt like the plot points were too convenient, and I was not invested at all. I wanted to love this…I didn’t.

Thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC!

[Beth Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 ⭐️

Tyler Sinclair, a successful musician, returns home to the small town of Stone Mountain to perform a benefit concert for his childhood friend, Doc, who had lost his legs during a childhood accident involving the falls. While back in town, a tragic car accident occurs that could change the trajectory of the town and the lives of Tyler and Doc.

➕ Interesting small town setting (although I kept thinking the story took place in Stone Mountain, Georgia, but I think it actually took place in New York)
➕ Decent writing although I think more was needed to become attached to the characters.

➖ How race was handled - there are a couple of younger people of color characters, and I feel they needed a sensitivity reader or incorporated their identity a little more.
➖ More connective tissue was needed in this novel. It was a relatively short novel, and I feel “more” was needed. More on Doc, more on Freddi, more on Tyler.
➖ This probably would have been a better TV series than novel, as this was intended in the afterword.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for an Advance Reader Copy. My review is completely my own.

It publishes August 11, 2026.

[Sarah Jensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Review: Under the Falls (Falls #2) by Richard Russo

Estimated Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.14 out of 5 stars)

Disclaimer: I received a free advance review copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and analyses presented below are entirely my own.

Full review available here: https://prairiefoxreads.blogspot.com/...

Publication and Context

Title: Under the Falls
Author: Richard Russo
Series: Falls (#2)
Expected Publication Date: August 11, 2026
Publisher: Knopf
Page Count: 256 pages
Format: Hardcover (ASIN / ISBN: 9780593805107)
Genres: Fiction / Literary Fiction / Mystery / Suspense / Friendship / Book Club

Contextual Backdrop:
Expected to hit shelves in August 2026, Under the Falls marks the return of Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Russo. Billed in the publisher’s description as his first stand-alone novel since Chances Are . . .—despite also being categorized as “Falls #2”—this 256-page novel sees Russo pivoting into the territory of the propulsive thriller. It blends his well-known penchant for character-driven, small-town drama with elements of suspense and crime.
Purpose and Themes of the Work

The novel explores the inescapable gravity of one’s hometown and the long-shadowed consequences of the past. As the narrative states, the central fear of the protagonist is that “Stone Mountain is the kind of place you might escape from once, if you’re lucky, but not twice.”

Core themes revolve around the porosity of the line between right and wrong, the lingering scars of childhood trauma (specifically involving abuse and debilitating accidents), and the deep, often resentful complexities of lifelong friendships. It serves as an unflinchingly honest portrait of a tight-knit rural community unraveling under the weight of its own secrets.
Summary of the Work

Eighteen years ago, eighteen-year-old Tyler Sinclair fled the rural town of Stone Mountain without saying goodbye. Armed only with a guitar, a duffel bag, and money stolen from his abusive father, he successfully escaped a bleak home life and a despondent mother to eventually become the frontman of a famous band named after his hometown.

Now, Tyler is drawn back to Stone Mountain to perform a one-night-only benefit concert for his childhood friend, Doc, who lost the feeling in his legs following an accident years prior. But Tyler’s homecoming is not universally welcomed. As old memories rush back, he is confronted by the people he left behind.

At the concert, simmering resentments boil over. Tyler crosses paths with his former best friend Curt, who is now the town’s chief of police; Deb, Curt’s star officer from out of town; and Freddi, Curt’s wife and Tyler’s former lover. Freddi’s fraught history with Tyler and her current questionable dealings serve as the catalyst for a sudden tragedy, threatening to upend all of their lives and trap Tyler in the town he fought so hard to leave.
Analysis and Evaluation
Format, Pacing, and Structure

At a concise 256 pages, the novel is structured as a page-turner. Unlike some of Russo’s more sprawling, leisurely paced literary epics, Under the Falls is designed to be a propulsive thriller centered around a single, catalytic event (the benefit concert) and the subsequent fallout.
Subjects and Voices

Russo utilizes his established strength: depicting working-class, rural American communities and the tangled interpersonal webs of the people who inhabit them. The dynamic between Tyler (the one who got away), Curt (the one who stayed and assumed authority), and Freddi (the shared romantic link) establishes a classic, tension-filled triangle of loyalty and betrayal.
Strengths and Limitations

Strengths: The premise offers a strong, localized pressure cooker of a plot. By confining the primary action to a homecoming benefit concert, Russo creates a natural convergence point for decades of buried secrets to surface.
Limitations: The book currently holds a somewhat polarized reception. While without fabricating details regarding the specific execution of the ending, it is common for literary authors pivoting into suspense to experience a divide among their traditional readership, who may expect either a conventional thriller pace or a traditional literary character study.
Suitability and Audience Guidance

Content Considerations: The publisher’s synopsis notes themes of childhood abuse, a paralyzing childhood accident, and a central crime/tragedy.
Target Audience: Readers who enjoy small-town mysteries, suspenseful character studies, and the exploration of fractured childhood friendships. It will naturally appeal to fans of Richard Russo’s previous work, as well as book clubs looking for discussions on morality and loyalty.

Conclusion and Verdict

Under the Falls promises an intense, character-driven mystery about the impossibility of truly leaving your past behind. Taking Richard Russo’s signature empathetic storytelling into darker, more suspenseful territory, this upcoming August 2026 release sets the stage for a tight, gut-wrenching drama about the sins of an insular community.
Supplementary Elements: Reading Companions
What to Read Next

For readers interested in the themes presented in Under the Falls:

Chances Are . . . by Richard Russo – Mentioned directly in the book’s synopsis, this is Russo’s previous foray into a mystery involving a reunion of old friends and long-buried secrets.
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane – A masterful, suspenseful exploration of childhood friends who grew apart, only to be forced back together by a tragic crime in their tight-knit hometown, with one friend acting as the investigating police officer.
Empire Falls by Richard Russo – For those who want to experience the Pulitzer Prize–winning pinnacle of Russo’s small-town, character-driven literary fiction.



Rating: ★★★★ 3.14 / 5

- Prairie Fox 🦊📖

[KBeansbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS IS A NETGALLEY ADVANCED READING COPY:
Tyler Sinclair hasn’t been back to his hometown Stone Mountain since he was just 18. He had left shortly after an accident that involved his friend “Doc” and Curtis. They were swinging over the dam into the water with a rope competing who would swing out the furthest when Doc and Tyler got on the rope together and had decided that Tony would push Doc when they got out far enough so he’d fly further than Curtis and win. But the plan didn’t go so smoothly, Doc ended up on the rocks and sunk to the bottom. When Tyler dove down to get him Doc was laying at the bottom of the lake as if he were napping. He would end up paralyzed from the waist down and live the rest of his life in a wheelchair. As teens, Curtis and Tyler were the closest and then they both also had extreme feelings for Freddi who was new to their school later on in the years and she was dating Curtis but cheating on him extensively with Tyler. When Tyler kissed her at the fair, Curtis saw them and that was when Tyler knew he needed to get out of Stone Mountain. He left with the guitar on his back and the money he’d stolen out of his abusive fathers billfold and never looked back.
Over the years, his band, Stone Mountain becomes a successful band and wins several awards with millions of fans. They are getting ready to embark on a new tour but his agent Jason has agreed to make a stop at Stone Mountain to give a show and it’s all its proceeds to Doc who is losing his insurance and his disability and needs the money. Curtis is now the chief of police and married to Freddi and have a son they call Junior who is in high school. Freddi is also Docs caregiver and has been for years. As an interview is done with Doc and Tyler, it becomes clear to Tyler he ever should’ve come back to the town and when the interview is over Doc tells Tyler that there’s a lot of people who resent him, blame him for Docs accident and he may not be as well received at the concert as he may think.
During the concert the crowd becomes rowdy, it is then announced that Doc, the man who the concert was for has died of an aneurysm hours earlier and that Freddi was with him. The audience begins throwing eggs into the stage and at the band, one hitting the mayor who announced the tragic news and is asking them to calm down. As the band runs off the stage to relative safety they remain hidden inside the school where the performance was outside of. Once all the crowds and cars are gone, Curtis the chief tells them they are safe to go. On their ride out of town in their limo a truck rolls up behind them high beams on and is slamming into the back of their car. The roads are so narrow and barely fill the tiny roadway and abutting that is a mountainside and a huge drop off cliff on the other. With one good slam, the limo skids and flies through the metal bars on the side of the road and tumbles several times down the cliff landing on its hood nearly completely flattened.
Tyler wakes in the hospital after many days in the ICU, his larynx and airways crushed. He will never sing again. The driver, his agent are dead on impact and his girlfriend and songwriting and singing partner managed to get away with the least of the injuries and has been taken home by her parents.
While they try to figure out who would cause harm and want Tyler dead there are some serious suspicious rumors going around about Freddi and her work with Doc, the chief’s involvement and a cover up of who it was that ran them off the road. It’s an incredible thrilling experience to figure out the culprit and how the main character who has the most to lose will manage to keep his loved ones out of trouble and his name out of the investigation that is now in the hands of the state police.
Incredibly written and will have you pondering your childhood friends, regrets and what it would be like to have a chance to say the things you’ve regretted or didn’t say back then.
Thank you #NetGalley for this #ARC, to #RichardRusso for another captivating book #UnderTheFalls and to the publisher #KnopfBorzoiBooks #PenguinRandomHouse

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Under the Falls by Richard Russo is a highly recommended literary/crime drama that exposes resentment, betrayal, and secrets in a small town.

After growing up in a dysfunctional family, Tyler Sinclair left Stone Mountain at eighteen with his guitar and without a word to any of his friends, including his best friend Curt. He never looked back. Now he has success and fame as the front man of his band, Stone Mountain, and finds himself returning for a one-night-only benefit concert to the place he left behind eighteen years ago and vowed never to return to, Stone Mountain. The concert will benefit an old friend, Doc, who had an accident at the swimming hole that left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair when he was twelve. When Tyler meets with Doc before the concert for an interview, he learns from Doc while driving to the local high school that some people in Stone Mountain Blame him for Doc's accident.

When the news comes during the concert that Doc has unexpectedly died, all the resent for Tyler's fame and his never returning or sharing his wealth/fame with them breaks out in the crowd, resulting in a melee. He discovers that Curt is now Stone Mountain’s chief of police and married to Freddi, the girl they both liked. As Tyler and his crew is escaping town in a limousine, they are driven off the road, down the side of a mountain by someone, leaving only two very injured survivors, Tyler and Beth, singer and co-writer. Young police officer Deb is tasked with finding them and calling the ambulance, etc, which sets into motion the start of the crime drama.

This is a very short novel that displays some of Russo's gift in empathetic character development while including flawed individuals, male friendships, and small town issues before veering into a crime story. Russo himself understands a small town's resentment and expectations that a famous former resident should return to benefit them and their situation, despite how that former resident's experiences in the town. This is personally understandable in a roundabout way for me as my family moved a lot when I was a child and when someone in the small town where I attended high school proclaims "and you're from____" I always want to reply, "No, I'm not."

In an afterword, Russo writes that the novel began as a TV script that didn’t survive the Writer’s Guild strike. As a fan of his writing, this explains some of what the novel is missing, including more of his wit and humor, the abbreviated character development, and better pacing and editing. It also explains the predictability of the plot. While we're confronting this flaw, actually, an astute editor should have also removed the three small, throwaway, dated political comments that serve no purpose in the plot and were all both pointless and unnecessary. Additionally Stone Mountain is a well known city in Georgia, so perhaps another name would have been better. Russo gets points for his body of work. 3.5 rounded up.

Under the Falls is a good choice for fans of Russo's oeuvre. Thanks to Knopf for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2026/0...

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for providing a free Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I discovered Richard Russo's phenomenal prose last year. While his world views seem to lean much more conservative than mine, I found his interrogation of financial privilege and the strangulation of small formerly-industrial towns to be insightful and refreshingly funny. Writing capital-F funny is hard, especially when the topics being discussed are often heavy. So I was very excited to see this new release, and the prologue promised yet another sharp critique of the collapsing of the American dream. However the story I got from Chapter 1 onward was very different. Under the Falls is mostly a mystery; not a who-done-it, but a why-done-it--and I'm sorry to say that question was not compellingly answered. We start in Stone Mountain, following the eponymous musical-duo whose frontman (Tyler) is returning to his decrepit home town to raise money for the childhood friend he accidentally paralyzed. The concert ends poorly, the paralyzed victim is revealed to be unable to benefit from any funds raised in his name; the band attempts a rapid escape from the town when their car is pushed off the mountain. Tyler and his band mate/wife are left for dead. Except they survive. Now Tyler's old childhood friend Curt, who is the local chief of police, is trying desperately to rekindle his relationship with Tyler, without compromising his family life and the dirty secrets that surround his little town. Unfortunately for Curt, his very talented employee--a Hispanic Black woman named Deb--is very quick to notice things. Deb and Curt respect each other. They're both trying to do the right thing. Will they be able to, in a town sapped of resources and goodwill?

Honestly, the story would work great as a series, and I found out it may have been intended to be one at first. This explains the crazy breakneck speed of the novel. I knew Russo for his slower introspective takes, but this multiple POV novel is Go, Go, Go, non-stop. This ungodly rapid pace came at the expense of the character's interiority. The subsequent plot twists were fairly easy to guess, which would make this an okay, but not great, mystery novel. The prose is competent but doesn't push the story to a compelling conclusion in my opinion. It was too rushed, diluted by too many POVs, and wasn't as funny as Russo's past novels. I would give the novel 2.5 stars, but I'm rounding it down for the following 3 problems:

1) The novel refuses to name the act of having sex with a drugged person, who can't even remember the act, for what it is: RAPE. The fact that the drugged raped person climaxed does not change what it was.
2) Once again, Russo leans heavy into the "vengeful unreasonable woman ruins the sensitive guy's life." It's 2026, we can let go of that trope now.
3) We have a criminal in a position of authority that is presented as a sweetheart. I wouldn't have a problem with humanizing the man, but his motivations and behaviors were not logical. A January Six insurrectioner is also presented as a good guy deep down. The ambivalent nature of criminals was necessary for the story; the choice to have one of them be a January six-er was not, in my opinion.

[Linda Loretz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russo incorporates many of the same themes from his earlier books, but I did not find Under the Falls as layered and nuanced as his previous novels. The characters in Under the Falls seemed to be stereotypes of those found in "small town" America. Curt, one of the protagonists, is the chief of police. He is in a bad marriage to his high school sweetheart, Freddi, and condones the illegal activity she spearheads. There has been little positive growth in their lives, and they mostly feel resentment and a sense of entrapment. It is difficult to warm up to them since they are so miserable and isolated. Their stunted personal growth serves as a bleak reflection of the tired, neglected community they inhabit.

The story's action revolves around the return of Curt's childhood friend, Tyler Sinclair, who has become a famous rock star and agrees to perform a benefit concert in Stone Mountain, a fictional town in New York State near Albany that serves as the book's setting. Tyler had never wanted to return to his past, and from the moment he arrives, he gets bad vibes and negative messages. Therein lies the main message of Russo's book and a dismal one at that: few people escape the provincial nature of small town living, and if you are one of those who does manage to create a life elsewhere, there is no joy in returning. People hold onto old grievances, and relationships become convoluted rather than growing and propagating. Russo also conveys the message that childhood experiences are an integral part of one's fabric, and that life's outcomes depend on how, or whether, you deal with the events of the formative years.

As Tyler and Curt become reacquainted, the positive and negative aspects of their friendship become apparent, and the flaws in male friendships form the basis for a predictable plot that may be meant as dramatic irony, since readers can figure out what Curt and Tyler only discover at the end of the novel. Without providing spoilers, an important theme Russo repeatedly emphasizes through Tyler is the "world of IS and the world of MEANING." In other words, grappling with reality and recognizing what is happening or figuring out the meaning in the events of one's life is part of self-development, and it is mighty difficult when the community cannot bear any changes.

Since Russo's writing is engaging, I stayed interested in reading this book even though nothing surprising happened after the first few chapters. I think that was the point. The small town of Stone Mountain had dividing lines between the haves and have-nots. Those who stay there accept the precepts of living in a time warp. Companionship is important in a variety of relationships, many of which are shallow and meaningless. Time passes, but humans are somewhat powerless. The characters are amazingly unaware of the details of their lives and accept circumstances somewhat passively. It takes newcomers such as Deb, a new police officer, to question what has been accepted for generations and a returnee such as Tyler to recognize that there are age-old problems to address.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this book. To me, Richard Russo is a master in character development as well as story. The novel got off to a great start but somehow derailed along the way. In the acknowledgements, it stated that this was written as a TV pilot that fell victim to the writers’ strike several years ago. It was then turned into a novel.

As with his other books, this one is also set in an upstate New York town experiencing a depressed economy and the opioid epidemic. As the book opens, one of its former residents, a now famous rock star, is on his way to Stone Mountain to do a benefit for Doc, a man he grew up with.

The backstory is that three friends, the rock star Tyler, the now sheriff, Curt and Doc were at the falls and Doc jumped causing his paralysis.

Tyler is extremely reluctant to do this fundraiser. He hasn’t been back to Stone Mountain since he left at 18 and it brings up too many unpleasant memories. An interview was set up with Doc and it is clear there is underlying animosity. The concert is a disaster. The residents are not impressed by a boy made good and it becomes a brawl.

Tyler and his girlfriend lead singer, Beth, push their way out of the crowd. He is on the move and doesn’t really recognize anyone from his youth. It is dark and rainy; their limo is tailgated. The car behind them causes them to crash through a guardrail and down an embankment. Two people are killed. Tyler and Beth are seriously injured.

This is a great set up with so many possibilities. However, the reader is subject to endless pages of ruminations by the main characters. The worst of it is with Curt who is a spineless detective in an abusive marriage who turns a blind eye to his wife’s criminal behavior and her behavior toward him. His fawning over Tyler so many years later also seems a stretch.

Freddi, his wife, was also part of the friend group back in high school who had sex with Tyler before he left. She is a one note character: angry, abusive, cruel, criminal. We never see any humanity in her. I didn’t believe her sustained rage for the twenty years since high school was earned. The parts of the book when she interacts with her husband are nasty and cruel without shades of gray. Between Curt’s passiveness and her rage, it was a slog to read through.

Tyler, who apparently just ran away and buried the past, seemed too willing to take, not only responsibility, but blame for many things out of his control. His songwriting was a good outlet but a therapist might have been a good idea!

This is a Richard Russo book so the setting, the restlessness among residents of this crumbling town, some of the dialogue, was a pleasure to read. I only wish that when this story transferred from a script to novel, the beginning was kept but after the accident, a rewrite would have been welcome.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for allowing me to read the ARC and honestly review the book.

[Martie Nees Record · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martie's Stars - 4 1/2
Genre: literary thriller, male friendship, mystery, and suspense
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Pub. Date: Aug. 11, 2026

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Empire Falls,” Richard Russo, once again demonstrates his skill as a storyteller. Tyler Sinclair, 36, is a Nashville superstar who reminds me of John Mellencamp in that he represents the small-town identity and rural nostalgia left behind when he succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. Tyler writes songs about his youth in Stone Mountain, New York, located in the Adirondacks. His band is named after his hometown. He returns home for a benefit concert for Doc, a childhood friend who was paralyzed years ago at the town’s waterfalls. This his first performance back home. “Under the Falls” shares many similarities with the author's best-loved books, yet it lacks some warmth.

At 18, Tyler left town without a word to anyone to pursue what turned out to be a mega-successful music career. His friends, as well as the town, were left feeling bitter that he never said goodbye. That he wrote songs about them yet never returned their calls. His initial adult encounter with Doc becomes uncomfortable when his old friend suggests that Tyler isn’t universally beloved in his old haunts, and that some may even blame him for what happened at the Falls that day. Then things turn completely south when the concert is interrupted by news of a tragic death, followed by a fatal accident of a beloved member of the community. The audience began booing and throwing garbage onto the stage. Tyler went into shock and continued playing not knowing what else to do. Russo is at his best as he captures Tyler’s shock. Here, the author slows down the narrative pacing. He uses short, rhythmic sentences to show Tyler’s psychological detachment from the physical environment.

Many of the elements of classic Russo are here: male friendship, flawed moral character, helpless and enduring romantic love, small-town police, class, and distinctions between neighboring rural towns. But, in this one there is a darker, faster-moving narrative than usual which gives the characters less time and space to bloom in our hearts. Plus, several plot points bear scrutiny. The kidnapping of Tyler by his teen love, who is now married to another childhood friend, is totally unbelievable. Additionally, a few other scenes could have read better if edited or removed entirely. Still, this is Richard Russo, “Under the Falls” never lost my interest. I recommend this novel.


I received this Advance Review Copy (ARC) novel from the publisher at no cost in exchange for an honest review.
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[Carole Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rock star returns to the small town he escaped years earlier

Stone Mountain is a small town in the Adirondacks that has long been in decline, one from which it is said if you're lucky you can escape - once. Tyler Sinclair did just that eighteen years ago, a teen on the verge of adulthood with a guitar and little else but his memories of an abusive father and the three friends he left behind without a word. He is now the lead singer in a band (also called Stone Mountain) which is starting to tour for the first time since the COVID lockdowns. Unbeknownst to him, his manager Jason and bandmate/partner Beth have arranged for the first stop on the tour to be in Stone Mountain, a benefit concert for Tyler's old friend Doc who severely injured himself while fooling around with Tyler and their freind Curt in the nearby Falls back in the day. Tyler had no intention of ever returning to his hometown...too many bad memories, too much guilt, and more than a little fear...but that decision has been taken out of his hands, When the concert explodes into chaos, it is clear that many in the town resent Tyler and his success, and things only get worse from there. Death and injury soon follow, and long buried secrets start to emerge. There are bad things happening in Stone Mountain, and Tyler may not escape from it a second time.
Under the Falls is a bit of a departure for noted fiction writer Richard Russo, more a fast-paced thriller than his usual character-focused tale seen through the lens of social insight. There are definitely some classic Russo elements here, with flawed characters and a small town that prosperity has left behind to decay. Weaving in themes of reunion, resentment, and remorse as well as the heavy weight that the past carries, the reader watches what happens when the prodigal returns reluctantly to confront the past that haunts him. It is a solid if not terribly original page-turner, one which doesn't develop characters as deeply as I have come to expect from this author....when I read that the novel started out as a pilot for a TV project, it made sense. The writing was geared towards a different medium, where actors' performances would flesh out the character. Overall I would rate it at 3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 4, and think it would find a receptive audience more with readers of John Grisham and David Baldacci than with those of Richard Ford (to whom one would normally compare a Russo novel). Fans of Mr. Russo might still enjoy this outing, as long as they go into it with lowered expectations when it comes to the interior life of the characters. My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Pantheon Vintage and Anchor/Knopf Books for allowing me access to the novel in exchange for my honest review.

[Laura Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pulitzer Prize winning author of the novel, Empire Falls, Richard Russo, is releasing a new novel on August 11, 2026. The book, Under the Falls, set in the fictional town of Stone Mountain, near the Adirondack mountains of New York state, features country music star Tyler Sinclair returning to his hometown for a benefit concert organized for a childhood friend. Upon returning to Stone Mountain, Tyler finds that though his life and career has skyrocketed to wealth, fame, and accomplishments, the world he left behind has become stagnant with secrets and the tragic life he escaped when he left without even saying goodbye.

Some of his friends are excited to see Tyler return to the mountain. But not everyone welcomes him home. At the benefit concert for Tyler's childhood friend "Doc" (who was paralyzed, becoming a paraplegic from a fall at the dam when they were boys) a riot breaks out. The crowd attacks Tyler and the band. When finally, he and his band can leave the town to go back down the mountain, his limo is a forced off the road and down a steep embankment. Tyler wakes up to find himself in the hospital with devastating news. His band manager and the limo driver are dead, his body is broken and his voice, his music is gone. He must put the pieces of his world back together and discover what secrets of the past have now corrupted his future.

Under the Falls is a true crime story embracing the fact that you can't run away from your past, you can only live with the consequences of your actions.

Under the Falls is the first novel I have read by Richard Russo, and I am eager to discover his other works. That is one of the greatest gifts to a reader...more stories. Finding a talented author with many prior books is like opening up a treasure chest of precious gems. So many wonderful writings to experience. I was touched by the emotion he coaxed from his characters. How involved I became in their lives. On top of that, Russo's book was a page turner. It's pacing moved the story along expertly as if the reader was careening down the Stone Mountain with the story, barreling towards the climactic ending, eager to find out the fates of his characters and the world he created.

I am rating Under the Falls four stars for excellence in storytelling and character development. I look forward to seeing how others respond to the book when it is published by Knopf Doubleday August 11, 2026. Thank you to Knopf Doubleday, NetGalley and Richard Russo for the Advanced Reader's Copy of Under the Falls in exchange for this honest review.

#UndertheFalls. #NetGalley #RichardRusso

[Sue Parsons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Under the Falls by Richard Russo

Thank you to Knopf Publishing & NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

Tyler Sinclair, a now famous rock star in his mid-thirties, reluctantly returns to the tiny Adirondack town of Stone Mountain that he fled at 18. His band manager persuades him to return to the town to perform a charity concert. To Tyler’s surprise, he finds that many of the townspeople and even several of his old friends are less than happy to see him. The story revolves around the relationship between Tyler and his old friend, Curtis, now the town’s police chief who happens to be married to Tyler’s old crush, Freddi.

I am a huge Richard Russo fan and have enjoyed everything of his that I have read. I’ve found his books to be cleverly written, with an ironic even sometimes hilarious sense of humor. His characters with their often unique perspectives are interesting and believable. Obviously, my expectations for Under the Falls were pretty high. So it was disappointing to see that something clearly went wrong with this story.

The prologue is the best part of the book, and it made me want to keep reading. However, Russo’s usual humor is completely missing. The characters seem shallow, with none of his usual compelling descriptions. Finally, the mystery that is supposed to emerge after a tragic accident on Tyler’s way out of town was not very credible.

The author’s acknowledgments at the back of the book mentioned that Under The Falls was originally written to be a TV pilot script, but it was doomed by the WGA writers’ strike. The script was then adapted into a novel meant to be mystery/thriller novel. The author thanks “three different writer friends” for the good notes on both versions, and that he was able to incorporate many of these into his resulting novel. I believe that answers many of the questions I had as to why the book reads the way it does.

Although it may be too late in the publishing process, a suggestion would be to move the author’s acknowledgements to be a foreword. Having that understanding that the story was originally a tv pilot script could make a difference right from the start in the way the reader views some aspects of the story. I know it would have for me.

[Raymond Muraida · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are times I have amazing days and there are times the days just don’t go my way. But that’s life. Apparently, that’s also true with the writing life. Years ago, I fell in love with Russo’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Empire Falls. Empire Falls was a great literary example of an amazing day. Near perfect with characters you could care for and a setting that made you sadder as each page turned. In my opinion, that novel is up there as the Great American Novel. I’m sorry to say that Under the Falls is a writer’s example of things not quite going the way they should. The characters were so one-dimensional. I got lost in the setting. Frankly, I got so lost in Under the Falls, I started to feel like I was missing pages. Even to the point that I kept turning the pages back to see if I indeed did miss something. But I didn’t.

I kept thinking of the tagline of this novel: a spell-binding page turner about a crime in a small town. Seriously, the only spell that was impacting me was the one that was closing my eyes in boredom. Please, understand, I’m trying to be honest about a story that I had high hopes for as I love the writings of Mr. Russo.

Then I got to the acknowledgement at the end of the novel. The story I just finished was originally written as a pilot for a television series that did not happen. Maybe that should have been a clue (since the novel is a mystery) that maybe it should have just stayed unpublished. As it was to be a television series in its original form now made sense to me the huge amount of unexplained and lingering questions throughout the novel. He was saving these reveals for seasons two and three. Believe me, I do not relish beating up on this novel, but I did devote a good amount of time reading it.

As I meandered my way through the fictitious town of Stone Mountain and the characters who lived or had once lived there, I came to the realization that I have watched better crime dramas on the BBC Network. Delightfully wonderful stories not written by a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

I am hoping for amazing days in the future for Mr. Russo.

An E-ARC of Under the Falls by Richard Russo was provided by NetGalley, Knopf, and author Richard Russo in exchange for my honest review.

[Larry H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Richard Russo’s first novel, Mohawk , in 1987, about a year after it published. (No, I’m not interested in knowing that you weren’t born yet.) I’ve been reading his books ever since, so I’m thankful to Knopf and NetGalley for the advance copy of his upcoming book!

Growing up in Stone Mountain, New York was tough for Tyler. His father was an abusive drunk and all Tyler wanted to do was escape. He found solace and support from his best friend Curt and Curt’s girlfriend Freddi. But when he turned 18, Tyler left Stone Mountain without saying goodbye to anyone, and never planned to return home.

Eighteen years later, Tyler is the lead singer of a popular band called (of all things) Stone Mountain. He’s reluctantly agreed to perform in his hometown, headlining a benefit for his childhood friend Doc, who became a paraplegic in an accident when they were younger. Just heading up the mountain, Tyler is confronted by old memories and his guilt about leaving without saying goodbye.

It turns out that not everyone in town is a fan of Tyler’s. Some feel that he used the town and people’s lives as inspiration for his songs, and people wonder when the town is going to benefit. The concert ends in a bit of a riot, and Tyler is more than ready to flee again.

Curt is now the town’s police chief, and he’s so thrilled his best friend came back. But Curt’s wife, Freddi, is very angry at being left behind, and that anger manifests itself in a tragic way. Her anger increases until she knows she must make Tyler pay.

Russo traditionally writes books about elderly men, their friendships and relationships, often in small New York towns. This book is a new genre—mystery—for him, and I didn’t think it worked. He’s still a beautiful writer, but I really never understood what caused Freddi to become so unhinged and do the things she did. And honestly, after a while, I just didn’t care. Oh, well.

The book will publish on 8/11.

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.

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[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC for review. To be published August 11, 2026.

3 stars

So, Russo. He’s not my favorite, but he’s usually pretty reliable. This….is not his best.

First off, now I’m sure this is primarily because I’m a Southern person, and I know Russo’s books are very specific as to place, which, if I remember correctly, is typically New York State. However, there are many, many of us Southern people and we do read. This book is set in a small town called Stone Mountain.

I don’t know about y’all (placed here very specifically, of course) but where I come from there’s only one Stone Mountain. It’s in Georgia. Kind of well known. The protagonist names his popular band Stone Mountain and the town name keeps coming up over and over again throughout the book. Has Russo never heard of Stone Mountain, Georgia? No editor? Because I have to say that it kept throwing me off. It would be like naming the fictional town in your book Kalamazoo, but not THAT Kalamazoo. Weird. But, again, maybe it’s just me.

Tyler Sinclair is Stone Mountain’s prodigal son; left at 18 and now he returns, eighteen years later, a star. He’s there, reluctantly to do a benefit show for his boyhood friend Doc who has severe medical issues.

Curt, Tyler’s childhood best friend is now chief of police. Freddi, Tyler’s former lover is Curt’s wife. Curt and Tyler reconnect. We also meet Deb, Curt’s star officer.

“Stone Mountain is the kind of place you might escape from once, if you’re lucky, but not twice.” This is a bit of a departure for Russo, or I think it is based on what I’ve read of him in that his has some thriller elements, but’s it’s still the examination of a rural, small town and a look at right and wrong.

The book is blessedly short. The big secrets are both pretty clear by page 20, one would have been obvious to a 5th grader with a calendar and Russo should know better. Plus, did this never occur to Tyler or has he suffered a brain injury we are not told about? The entire thing was predictable and disappointing. It gets three stars versus two only because Russo is still a great writer.