Available from Coffee House Press.

A whodunit with the who, this illustrated compendium of mayhem and misfortune spirals out from an investigation into two disappearances.

The Baltimore Atrocities is a mordant, deadpan collection of more than one hundred murders, betrayals, heartbreaks, suicides, and bureaucratic snafus—each with a half-page illustration by the author—that tells the story of a couple who spends a year in Baltimore in search of their respective siblings, who were abducted decades earlier as young children.

“Like most great books, the experience provided by The Baltimore Atrocities is one you won’t quite have a name for afterward, though you might start sitting with your back to the wall when you go to the bar.”

Blake Butler, Vice Magazine

“The Baltimore Atrocities unfolds like a conspiracy theorist’s web of coincidence and correlation, its pages seemingly the artifact of its own investigation, an inquiry as much about organizing the fallout of loss as it about solving its mystery. John Dermot Woods’ stunningly-illustrated novel is one of the most intelligent and moving books you’re likely to read this year, a striking accomplishment from one of our most distinctive writers.”

Matt Bell