The Lit-Crit Take: A genre-bending, character-driven, word-burning thriller about politics, love and the haunting pain of memory. The Pure Plot Pitch: I didn’t know—or care—much about the tight race for governor of New York until someone took a shot at one of the candidates and killed his wife instead. The main suspect, it turns out, was an anti-government crazy (and a devoted quilter—yes, you heard that right) who once did time with me. So suddenly I’m trying to track him down, getting sucked into the panicky heart of a closely fought election campaign, into an affair with a troubled political operative, and into the dangerously surreal world of people who prefer casting their vote with a sniper’s bullet.