This is absorbing, headlong reading, a play on classic horror with an
inventiveness of its own... As with all the best illusions, you are left
feeling not tricked, but full of wonder.
- The New York Times
**
The haunting new thriller from Alex North, author of the New York
Times bestseller The Whisper Man**
You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a
sinister smile--always on the outside of the group. Some part of you
suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five
years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that
it's attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the
darkest corners of the internet--and inspired more than one copycat.
Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree--and his
victim--were Paul's friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together.
But now his mother, old and suffering from dementia, has taken a turn
for the worse. Though every inch of him resists, it is time to come
home.
It's not long before things start to go wrong. Paul learns that
Detective Amanda Beck is investigating another copycat that has struck
in the nearby town of Featherbank. His mother is distressed, insistent
that there's something in the house. And someone is following him. Which
reminds him of the most unsettling thing about that awful day
twenty-five years ago.
It wasn't just the murder.
It was the fact that afterward, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again...
