This book grips both as a thriller and also as an empathetic examination of poverty and parenthood, violence and neglect in rural Missouri - where villains can be found in the most unlikely places.
Extract
'But you should never put a fifteen-year-old on a witness stand in a courtroom filled with a bunch of people he knows and expect a lot of tears. My thoughts were that of course I'd be acquitted, and then I'd be admired at school for being such a bad-ass. I mean, I daydreamed about that shit. I never thought I was in danger of ... ending up like this.' He was crying now, wiped his cheek again. 'Clearly I've gotten over whether people see me cry.'
'We need to fix this,' I said finally.
'It's not going to be fixed, Libby, not unless they find who did it.'
Parallels
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb
