Seth Fallon is a troubled teen, reared by his father in a rural Minnesota community where secrets are impossible and forgiveness is slow in coming. The day that he sets out to gun down the sheriff, Seth stops first at the home of his high school English teacher, who sees him but doesn't answer the door, before the young man proceeds on his mission, then dies, presumably by his own hand, in a nearby cornfield soon after. A father's anguish at his son's death and a teacher's questions of faith and her own place in the events of the day form the crux of this dark and brooding novel, which probes the deaths of two men and the guilt of a community too ready to assign blame and punishment.
VERDICT Maltman's second novel (after the acclaimed The Night Birds) is a powerful mix of tragedy, myth, psychological thriller, and discovery told in a style so engaging that the reader might easily get caught up in the beauty of the words if the story itself were not so stunning. [See Prepub Alert, 7/22/12.]
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