by Joe Clifford
First published 2023
Professor Robert Kirby has built a successful life at his upstate New York university, complete with a prestigious NEH grant and a comfortable distance from his troubled past. Then Lily arrives at his door with an impossible claim: she is the daughter of Brooke Mulcahy, Robert's stepsister who vanished during a Vermont snowstorm in 1998. Her car was found. Her body never was. Lily's visit triggers a cascade of destruction. Robert's wife Stephanie confesses her unhappiness and leaves with their teenage son. Brooke's former best friend Aaron emerges from his own grief to offer help. Most dangerously, Mike Rakowski surfaces again, the violent ex-boyfriend whose drug addiction and possessive rage once terrorized Brooke. As Robert's carefully constructed world collapses around him, he must confront the events of that winter night twenty-one years ago and the terrible secret he has carried ever since. The truth about Brooke's disappearance will force him to question whether redemption is possible after unforgivable acts.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller, family-drama
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: deception, redemption, secrets, unreliable-narrator
Setting: New York, Vermont
Period: 1998, 2019
315 pages · Paperback · Square Tire Books
Content warnings: death, mental-illness