First published 1999
Kate Sumner lies dead on the beach, victim of a savage sexual assault and murder. Her three-year-old daughter Hannah watched it happen but cannot speak. The girl's silence becomes both shield and burden as police investigators circle closer to their prime suspect: Kate's husband. Detective work transforms into a psychological maze where every family secret matters. Hannah holds the key to her mother's killer, yet trauma has stolen her voice. The investigation peels back layers of a marriage that may have harbored its own violence. Neighbors whisper about domestic troubles while forensic evidence points toward the husband. The case hinges on whether a traumatized child can somehow communicate what she witnessed that terrible night. Truth and justice depend on breaking through to a little girl whose world shattered in unspeakable violence.
Genres: mystery, crime, detective, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: unreliable-narrator, witness
Setting: Beach
Period: 20th-century
351 pages · Hardcover · Putnam Adult
Content warnings: child-death, graphic-violence, sexual-assault