The List
Steve Berry
Grand Central Publishing
July 2025
The List by Steve Berry has multidimensional characters within a riveting plot.
After a ten-year self-imposed exile, Brent Walker is returning home to Concord, a quaint town in central Georgia nestled close to the Savannah River. Brent left the town he was raised in after his wife and father died. But he returns after being hired by Southern Republic Pulp and Paper Company as its assistant general counsel.
For decades, Southern Republic has invested heavily in Concord, creating a thriving community where its employees live, work, and retire. But the civil luster of this quiet town is deceiving, and when a list of cryptic codes surface, Brent starts to see the cracks.
Southern Republic’s success is based largely on a highly unorthodox and deadly system to control costs, known only to the three owners of the company. Now, one of them, Christopher Bozin, has had a change of heart. Brent’s return to Concord, a move Bozin personally orchestrated, provides his conscience with a chance at redemption. But his other partners were used to controlling everything since it was a company town. They try to make sure no gets wind of what they are doing which puts Brent, his good friend Hank, and the love of his life, Ashley, in the crosshairs.
This story is a page turner.
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?
Steve Berry: This story is a little biographical. My hero is a lawyer in a small Georgian town that works for a paper company. The town is a company town. As with Brent, at one time I was representing the unions and then switched to represent the company. While in a meeting in the 1980s it occurred to me what if they got rid of their problems, not through arbitration, but by killing people to control all their costs. The story was born.
EC: What about the owners of the company?
SB: I wanted to show how the three owners of the company were amoral. They did not care about anything except profits. They decided to kill off their employees to maximize them. Because one of them is dying he has a change of heart and tries to clear his conscience. I hid the crime until about page 50. They are very careful about how they kill.
EC: Rumor has it you wrote the story in the 1990s?
SB: I wrote it in 1992, the second novel I ever wrote. It was in terrible condition, so it went into a draw. During Covid I took it out and thought it was a pretty good story, so I rewrote it. I did not change the story much, but how it was told.
EC: What about the plot?
SB: The plot has a Priority Program. The prologue sets up how the owners are very brutal people. The one plot is what they are doing, while the other characters of Brent, Ashley, and Hank revolved around each other. In some respects, it is a great Shakespearean tragedy, but with a good ending.
EC: How would you describe Brent?
SB: He was a former prosecutor, practiced law in a small town, and was very successful. He was close to Hank and eventually decided to represent the union, making a name for himself. Unfortunately, he got himself into a bad marriage that ended tragically. He has a lot of guilt because of what happened to his wife. He now tries to stay out of trouble. After leaving for a while, he returns, gets a job with the paper company, and must rise to the occasion.
EC: How would you describe Hank?
SB: He is a blue-collar guy with intuitive abilities. He knows how to make a deal and is very caring. I modeled him after the man I dedicated the book to, Richard Daley. After being the mayor of the town, he became the head of the union, trying to take care of everybody.
EC: What about Ashley?
SB: Brent never cheated on Paula, his wife, even though he never loved her and loved Ashley. Ashley is a free spirit, flirty, hard to pin down, and is somewhat flawed. She is a great mother, making sure her child came first, over herself. She never cheated with any of husbands.
EC: What about the relationship between Brent and Ashley?
SB: They were in love with each other but up till now never did anything about it. They avoided it and did what is expected of them. Now they have a chance of redemption.
EC: Next book?
SB: It will be a Cotton Malone book out in February of next year. It is his 20th adventure with the setting in Sweden. It has the largest medieval illuminated manuscript in the world. The book is titled The Devil’s Bible.
THANK YOU!!
