by Ivy Pochoda
First published 2013
June and Val climb onto a makeshift raft in the Red Hook projects on a sweltering Brooklyn night. When morning comes, only June returns, half-drowned and unable to remember what happened to her friend. Val has vanished without a trace. The incident splits their neighborhood along old fault lines. June struggles with guilt and fragmented memories while Val's mother Joni refuses to accept that her daughter might be dead. Detective Fidelis Morales works the case as residents point fingers at each other. The projects simmer with suspicion. Some blame the white gentrifiers moving into the area. Others suspect local troublemakers. June faces pressure from all sides to remember details that remain locked away. As the investigation stalls, the community's tensions boil over, threatening to tear apart families and friendships that have survived decades of hardship together.
Genres: drama, suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: mystery, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Brooklyn, New York, Red Hook
Period: contemporary
320 pages · Hardcover · Sceptre
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness