Darkness peering

EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Winner of the prestigious Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, Alice Blanchard makes her electrifying debut as a novelist with this gripping tale of suspense that dares to stare unblinkingly into the darkest recesses of the human heart.The dead girl lay faceup on the edge of the pond, a snake coiled in the muddy hollow of one arm. For Police Chief Nalen Storrow, it was a shocking reminder of the violence he thought he'd left behind when he moved his wife and children to Flowering Dogwood, Maine, a town where no one locks their doors. And now Storrow's search for the truth leads to a chilling possibility...the murderer might be his own son, Billy.Eighteen years later the murder of the girl in the pond has never been solved. Now a different cop is obsessed with the case--Rachel Storrow, Billy's grown sister. But no sooner does Rachel reopen the investigation than another young woman disappears. Once again Billy is a suspect, though far from the only suspect in town. The harder Rachel peers behind Flowering Dogwood's picture-perfect facade--at the center of which is the respected Winfield School for the Blind and Special Needs--the more the mystery deepens.A cunning psychopath is moving undetected through Rachel's hometown, taking her on a journey of suspicion, doubt, and bone-deep fear. Plunged into a world where darkness follows even the innocent, Rachel must unearth secrets that span decades and face a staggering personal truth.**Darkness Peering** is more than a harrowing suspense novel of the first rank. It is a powerful portrait of a woman who, like her father, must walk the tightrope between honor and justice, and in doing so tests her own humanity.