First published 2012
When sixteen-year-old Glen Bodine's body turns up in Bensington, Massachusetts, the death looks like accident or suicide. Police Chief James Morgan knows this wealthy Boston suburb prefers neat explanations. Then an eccentric drifter confesses to child murder. Morgan must reexamine not only Glen's death but another killing buried in the town's past. His investigation peels back the veneer of respectability to expose twisted desires and deadly secrets among Bensington's elite families. As Morgan pursues the truth through a maze of betrayals and lies, he fights his own forbidden attraction to a married woman. Around him, other residents struggle with their own dangerous passions. A female painter sleeps with a man she tries to hate. A wife discovers her perfect marriage was illusion. Another woman seeks sexual revenge against her husband and stepson. A ruthless tycoon targets the town's most devoted wife. Morgan must navigate these tangled relationships to solve the murders while battling his own moral conflicts.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: secrets, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Bensington, Massachusetts
Period: 20th-century
100 pages · Kindle Edition · Prologue Books
Content warnings: death, murder