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The Kingdoms of Savannah: A Novel Hardcover – July 19, 2022
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“Around these parts, the publication of a new George Dawes Green novel is an event. … Green leans all the way into Southern Gothic, but the main grotesquerie is the city’s history, built on the backs of enslaved people. His prose is languid, even luxurious, but at critical moments of suspense, he pares it back to ramp up the terror.”
―New York Times Book Review
Savannah may appear to be “some town out of a fable,” with its vine flowers, turreted mansions, and ghost tours that romanticize the city’s history. But look deeper and you’ll uncover secrets, past and present, that tell a more sinister tale. It’s the story at the heart of George Dawes Green’s chilling new novel, The Kingdoms of Savannah.
It begins quietly on a balmy Southern night as some locals gather at Bo Peep’s, one of the town’s favorite watering holes. Within an hour, however, a man will be murdered and his companion will be “disappeared.” An unlikely detective, Morgana Musgrove, doyenne of Savannah society, is called upon to unravel the mystery of these crimes. Morgana is an imperious, demanding, and conniving woman, whose four grown children are weary of her schemes. But one by one she inveigles them into helping with her investigation, and soon the family uncovers some terrifying truths―truths that will rock Savannah’s power structure to its core.
Moving from the homeless encampments that ring the city to the stately homes of Savannah’s elite, Green’s novel brilliantly depicts the underbelly of a city with a dark history and the strangely mesmerizing dysfunction of a complex family.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCeladon Books
- Publication dateJuly 19, 2022
- Dimensions6.5 x 1.3 x 9.6 inches
- ISBN-10125076744X
- ISBN-13978-1250767448
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From the Publisher

Please talk about the two versions of Savannah that you present to the reader—the one that the tourists see, and the hidden one that unfolds over the course of the novel.
GEORGE DAWES GREEN: Tourists imagine they get the character of the city in these tours, with all the mansions and fine silverware, and all the floating Victorian specters moaning about their Lost Cause and their fallen nobility; with all those murderous children and rich heiresses throwing themselves tragically from cast-iron balconies. But Savannahians can’t stand all that death-cult stuff. The real city comes to us through its living stories: the immeasurably rich memories of our neighbors.
What is the significance behind Kingdoms being plural in the title of the book?
There are many worlds in this small city: the redoubts of the old guard, the Black neighborhoods, the 39 homeless camps that encircle the city, the tourist district. As my protagonist Morgana Musgrove says: “Savannah’s not just one realm, it’s a great many realms—but they work together to keep us in thrall.”
Editorial Reviews
Review
"The Kingdoms of Savannah is a novel about a place and the people in that place that reads like a thriller but could only have been written by someone who knows Savannah and its stories intimately and wants them to be told. It’s the apotheosis of Southern Gothic Noir."
―Neil Gaiman, Author of American Gods
"A rich, sprawling, dazzling mystery that's also a journey into history―of a nation, of a city, and of one unforgettably dysfunctional family. I savored every page."
―Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of The House Across the Lake
“Compelling characters and vivid settings make this impressive Southern narrative stand out among the best. THE KINGDOMS OF SAVANNAH is not to be missed.”
―Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author
"In a sense all good novels are mysteries, but I've never read a mystery novel any finer than this one. It impeccably fulfills every requirement of the genre―idiosyncratic heroes and villains, exotic milieus, ugly secrets, surprising twists, gratifying turns. But George Dawes Green serves up so many other literary pleasures: deep appreciation of human complexity, unparalleled insight into a famously bewitching city and its arrangements of race and class, an acute sense of the differences between real and fake history, sentiment without sentimentality, comedy and tragedy perfectly intertwined, all depicted in gorgeous prose. The Kingdoms of Savannah is utterly satisfying."
―Kurt Andersen, New York Times bestselling author of Evil Geniuses
"[The Kingdoms of Savannah is] layered, but like a parfait goes down sweet, chilled and easy...it has the flavor of Southern Gothic without the bitter aftertaste. ... Green wants to hammer home that undergirding Savannah’s beauty ― all the flowers and fashion and conviviality ― is unspeakable ugliness that must be given voice. ... If history is made up of crime stories, the author seems to be proposing, then why not a crime story to help rethink history?"
―New York Times
“Around these parts, the publication of a new George Dawes Green novel is an event. … Green leans all the way into Southern Gothic, but the main grotesquerie is the city’s history, built on the backs of enslaved people. His prose is languid, even luxurious, but at critical moments of suspense, he pares it back to ramp up the terror.”
―New York Times Book Review
"A chilling southern thriller with a definite Midnight in the Gardens of Good and Evil vibe."
―PEOPLE, Book of the Week
“Deeply rooted in Savannah’s at times horrific history, yet looking hopefully toward the future, this provocative page-turner is sure to enthrall a broad spectrum of readers. Green is writing at the top of his game.”
―Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review
"In his first novel in more than a decade, Edgar Award winner Green delivers a gripping and expertly researched Southern literary thriller that is anything but cozy. Green’s novels may not come around often, but when they do, they hit hard and stay with you long after the end.”
―Kirkus, STARRED Review
"This fascinating story takes readers from homeless encampments to elegant homes as Morgana and her children probe the doings of a strange, dysfunctional family and discover appalling injustices in the city’s past. Based on historical events, Green's literary thriller will draw those who loved John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."
―Booklist, STARRED Review
"A masterful and multifaceted work: finely crafted mystery, thought-provoking social commentary and an indelible portrait of a complicated city."
―BookPage, STARRED Review
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Celadon Books (July 19, 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 125076744X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1250767448
- Item Weight : 1.05 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.3 x 9.6 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #26,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #74 in Southern Fiction
- #1,861 in Murder Thrillers
- #4,177 in Suspense Thrillers
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

George Dawes Green, founder of The Moth and Unchained, is an internationally celebrated author. His first novel, The Caveman’s Valentine, won the Edgar Award and became a motion picture starring Samuel L. Jackson. The Juror was an international bestseller in more than twenty languages and was the basis for the movie starring Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin. Ravens was chosen as one of the best books of 2009 by the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Mail of London, and many other publications. George Green grew up in Georgia and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2022
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I am not a fan of charming homeless, addicted or alcoholic characters and that limited my own appreciation of the novel.
It could be read in conjunction with "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" to get another somewhat similar but more nuanced and real flavor of Savannah.
Bo Peep’s is a local gin mill where the denizens come from a mix of Savannah locals. On one night in particular, a man is murdered and a local eccentric is kidnapped, after drinking in the bar. The man is found in the burned-down home of a local notorious landlord, and he is accused of the dark deed. Enter one of Savannah’s society’s glamorous doyennes, Miss Morgana Musgrove. Because she owns a local detective agency, one of her many holdings, she is called upon to solve the killing and exonerate the accused. But the accused is a slimeball. And he knew the kidnapped eccentric. And Stony, the kidnapped woman, seemed to have found evidence of a lost treasure on a remote island and a lot of folks know about it but pay her no mind. Morgana and her oddball dysfunctional collection of children, including her vagabond son Ransom,who lives in one of the many homeless camps surrounding the city, set out to find Stony and solve the murder. Then there is Jaq, a bartender/filmmaker/amateur sleuth who is Morgana’s niece, but who knows a lot more than she should. And she is determined to solve everything on her own.
And the corruption in historic Savannah society is rampant.
At once a glimpse of faded Southern decadence, colorful Savannah inhabitants, a possible post-Civil War community founded and run by slaves, a homeless community populated by thousands, and buried treasure, this is a refreshing take on the classic Southern Gothic. It is funny, it is enlightening, and it is masterfully written.
I loved it.
Then Green surprised me with The Juror. By this time I was living in Pennsylvania and reading The Juror kept me up all night. I knew right away someone would turn it into a movie, but I also new the film would never come close to the creepy pleasure of reading the novel.
The Kingdoms of Savannah arrived after I've been living in North Carolina for several years and George Dawes Green has done it again! Not since Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has an author so completely captured the "charm" of Savannah and her southern "traditions". If I was still working in a bookstore I would put this book into the hands of anyone who enjoys a good mystery, or learning the surprising history still hidden away in the south.
Green captured my attention with the prologue and before I knew it the sun was rising.
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