“Tell Me Everything” is the cozy, confiding title of Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, the fifth in her Amgash series, named for the Illinois hometown of featured character Lucy Barton. For longtime readers of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maine author, this book may be the epitome of literary fun: Familiar iconic characters from earlier novels, including Lucy, Bob Burgess and Olive Kitteridge, mix and mingle in the fictional landscape of Crosby, Maine.

Strout serves as chief chemist and choreographer, staging relationships old and new. For the record, Olive is still Olive, now 90, clipped and judgy, living in a retirement home. Bob is still Bob, at 65, large-hearted and long-suffering, carrying the weight of the world. And Lucy, now 66, is still Lucy, ever fretful, curious, child-like.

As the title suggests, this is a book about stories and storytelling, about the histories we leave and the lives that go unrecorded. Olive gets the ball rolling by asking her friend, Bob Burgess, for an introduction to local author Lucy Barton. Their initial frosty encounter thaws quickly, as Olive details a heartbreaking episode from her mother’s past. The two start to meet regularly, and Lucy soon gets into the act, sharing snippets from daily life. The tales they tell each other, such as Lucy’s chance encounter with a man on a train, or a taxi ride, are unsolved riddles that leave them pondering. The two of them mull over possible meanings and interpretations, like working a jigsaw puzzle.

“Those are my stories,” Lucy says, pulling on her boots and coat. “They are stories of loneliness and love … and the small connections we make in this world if we are lucky.”

Lucy and Olive’s visits form a backdrop to the book’s larger plot, a whodunnit involving a woman’s body that turns up in a quarry. Suffice it to say, there’s plenty of mystery afoot, and decoys, and room for the legal maneuverings of Bob Burgess, the attorney who takes the case in spite of himself. Of course he finds goodness and hope in the suspect, the dead woman’s son, a dorky loner with ample motive, because that’s what Bob does. It’s one of Strout’s recurrent themes that, like most people, Bob doesn’t really know himself or recognize his own worth.

The book’s most compelling story, however, is the one that centers on the bond between Lucy and Bob, who are married to other people. Lucy thinks of Bob as her best friend in town, and one of the best friends she’s ever had. Their relationship is a huge comfort to them both. Every week, they meet for a walk along the river, and they talk about whatever’s on their minds. Bob routinely sneaks a smoke during these walks, a well-kept secret between them.

Their friendship is a model of ease and openness, of genuine fondness and caring, until it isn’t. Like many platonic ties, their friendship has borders in need of shoring up. The arc of their relationship, and its near derailing, is a centerpiece of the book.

“As (Bob) got out of his car and walked toward (Lucy), the sight of her standing there made something gold-colored flicker inside him; it was joy,” Strout writes. “And then he had to stop walking because – at that precise moment – he understood exactly how much he loved her.”

Elizabeth Strout has been telling the stories of these beloved characters for years now, moving them forward in time. She explores many of the same primal issues from one book to the next – about how little we know of ourselves and each other, how we’re drawn toward connection with others, how ordinary love is a universal aspiration that gives meaning to our lives.

Readers may find this book has a different weight and tenor than previous installments of the Amgash series, perhaps because Lucy is not its first-person narrator. Her simple guileless manner is less dominant here, vying for our attention with other characters and their surfeit of stories. One result is that the contrast between Olive and Lucy, between brusque and breathy, tamps down some of the customary Lucy uplift.

Once again, Strout has managed to compress key histories from her earlier books into a few telling sentences, a miracle of distillation that opens this novel, and the Strout ecosystem, to new and old readers alike. Lucy Barton, Bob Burgess and Olive Kitteridge are among the signature creations of the modern literary canon. May we continue to reap the richness and surprise of their separate and commingled lives.

Joan Silverman writes op-eds, essays and book reviews. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News. She is the author of “Someday This Will Fit,” a collection of linked essays.