Morowa Yejide, a Washington, D.C., native, is the author of Time of the Locust. Creatures of Passage (Akashic Books), her second novel, tells the story of Nephthys Kinwell, a D.C. taxi driver ferrying passengers in a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River. Unknown to her when the book opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, 10-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same body of water. It is there that the boy – reeling from having witnessed an act of molestation at his school but still questioning what and who he saw – has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the “River Man.” When Dash arrives unexpectedly at Nephthys’s door bearing a cryptic note about his unusual discourse with the River Man, Nephthys must face what frightens her most. Filled with otherworldly landscapes, flawed superhumans, and reluctant ghosts, Creatures presents an intriguing imagining of the nation’s capital.