First published 2005
Katherine Shea moves restlessly across continents at twenty-three. She wanders through Italy's ancient monuments, then to literary circles in New York, quiet towns in Maine, and finally Mexico's arid ranches. But death follows her travels. Unexplained murders occur wherever she goes, victims appearing too close to her route for coincidence. Katherine finds strange comfort studying cannibalism in books, paintings, and historical accounts. The gore and savagery in these works both disturb and fascinate her. As bodies accumulate along her journey, Katherine begins to suspect the killings connect to her own dark fixations. She realizes the mysterious deaths shadowing her movements point to a terrible truth about herself. Her obsession with violent, primitive behavior may reveal something she cannot face.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: dark-protagonist, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Italy, Maine, Mexico, New York
Period: 21st-century
304 pages · Paperback · Grove Press
Content warnings: gore, graphic-violence, murder