“Taut, propulsive and darkly gripping, Montanari is a master of suspense.” –Chris Ewan
A haunting, nerve-jangling psychological thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Richard Montanari, set in a small town hiding a very dark secret
New York psychologist Will Hardy had it all—a loving family, a flourishing career, a bestselling book. Until the night it all ended in a tempest of fire and ash, leaving only Will and his fifteen-year-old daughter Bernadette to stand in the ruins.
Haunted and grief-stricken, Will accepts an enigmatic invitation from his family’s past to begin their lives anew in the small town of Abbeville, Ohio.
Meanwhile, Abbeville Chief of Police Ivy Holgrave is investigating the death of a local girl, convinced this may only be the latest in a long line of murders dating back decades—including her own long-missing sister.
But what place does Will's new home have in the story of the missing girls? And what links the killings to the diary of a young woman written over a century earlier? The disappearances in Abbeville have happened before, and now Will’s own daughter might be next…
A novelist, screenwriter, and essayist, Richard Montanari's work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and scores of other national and regional publications. He is the OLMA-winning author of the internationally acclaimed thrillers Deviant Way and The Violet Hour that have now been published in more than twenty countries. Montanari currently makes his home in Cleveland, Ohio, where he is slavish only to the high arts of boxing, Italian food, and independent film.