NEW YORK (AP) — For crime writer and Oklahoma native Lou Berney, there's something special about the drive out West.

"I love that stretch of I-40, what used to be Highway 66, from Oklahoma City to Arizona," he told The Associated Press during a recent interview. "I remember hearing about the painted desert when I was a kid, and thinking, 'Oh my god, there's a painted desert somewhere!' It was so magical. The petrified forest. It had this myth for me."

People travel in Berney's books, although not always because they want to do so. "November Road," his new novel, is set in 1963. It tells of an...