Description:
Moving from writing short stories to a novel is more than a test of endurance--it involves a daunting feat of courage as well as working a whole new set of muscles. Luckily, Alice Blanchard (whose collection The Stuntman's Daughter won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize) has courage and muscles to spare. Her debut thriller starts on familiar turf: the transplanted big-city cop taking on the job of small-town police chief to create a better life for his family. But Nalen Storrow, who moved from Boston to the Maine community of Flowering Dogwood, hasn't found the paradise he or his family was seeking. The faded town has a rather high crime rate, including the murder of a teenage girl with Down's syndrome in 1980, which begins the book. Nalen's own teenage son, Billy, quickly hooks up with the wrong crowd--and local gossip connects him to the murder. Billy's behavior has driven a wedge between Nalen and his wife, damaging their marriage. In fact, the only family member who seems bettered by the move is daughter Rachel, who at age 9 is a smart and pretty child who idolizes her father. Blanchard has a heaven-sent gift for summing characters up in a phrase--like the local medical examiner: "Archie was all dancing belly--a balding, fortyish indoor enthusiast who barreled toward the scene with the kind of eagerness most people reserved for sex or steak dinners...." She guides us through Nalen Storrow's disintegrating world with deceptive ease. And then she segues seamlessly into Rachel's inevitable reappearance 18 years later as a police officer in the very same town. Rachel uncovers leads to the unsolved murder of the young girl from two decades ago and also investigates a new murder. Along the way, we get wonderful helpings of poetry from Poe (including the perfect title) and from Yeats. Who could ask for anything more--except a sequel? --Dick Adler
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