Darkness Peering

Winner of the prestigious Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, Alice Blanchard makes her electrifying debut as a novelist with this gripping tale of suspense that dares to stare unblinkingly into the darkest recesses of the human heart.

The dead girl lay faceup on the edge of the pond, a snake coiled in the muddy hollow of one arm. For Police Chief Nalen Storrow, it was a shocking reminder of the violence he thought he'd left behind when he moved his wife and children to Flowering Dogwood, Maine, a town where no one locks their doors. And now Storrow's search for the truth leads to a chilling possibility...the murderer might be his own son, Billy.

Eighteen years later the murder of the girl in the pond has never been solved. Now a different cop is obsessed with the case--Rachel Storrow, Billy's grown sister. But no sooner does Rachel reopen the investigation than another young woman disappears. Once again Billy is a suspect, though far from the only suspect in town. The harder Rachel peers behind Flowering Dogwood's picture-perfect facade--at the center of which is the respected Winfield School for the Blind and Special Needs--the more the mystery deepens.

A cunning psychopath is moving undetected through Rachel's hometown, taking her on a journey of suspicion, doubt, and bone-deep fear. Plunged into a world where darkness follows even the innocent, Rachel must unearth secrets that span decades and face a staggering personal truth.

Darkness Peering is more than a harrowing suspense novel of the first rank. It is a powerful portrait of a woman who, like her father, must walk the tightrope between honor and justice, and in doing so tests her own humanity.