Beth Crow and her family, 16-year-old Max, 12-year-old Violet, and dog Boomer, are relocating from New Mexico to Wisconsin when their car breaks down in Pitch, Iowa.
Beth decides to stay put, so she gets a job in a convenience store; rents a two-bedroom house with peeling paint, no air conditioning, and a temperamental furnace; and enrolls Max and Violet in school. This turns out to be a fateful decision, especially for Violet.
As Violet settles into her new middle school, she makes two 'best friends', Cora Landry and Jordyn Petit. The girls arrange to have a sleepover at Cora's house, with the usual movie and pizza.
Later that night Cora is found - stabbed, bashed, and barely alive - at the town's defunct train depot; Violet wanders out of the nearby grass, severely shocked and covered with blood; and Jordyn is found back at her home, uninjured.
The victims claim the assailant was Joseph Wither, a teenage boy who lived in Pitch 70 years ago. At that time Wither killed a girl out of frustrated love, and he's since become an urban legend - a perpetual teenager who sometimes murders girls and sometimes convinces girls to run away with him.
Cora, Violet, and Jordyn learned about the killer when they teamed up for an urban legend project at school and chose Joseph Wither as their topic.
As the story unfolds, we learn about the girls and their families; the events leading up to the attack; and the repercussions afterward. We find out that Cora is a timid girl with few friends; Jordyn is a perpetual bully and mischief-maker; and Violet is a nice girl who wants to fit in. Add the fact that Cora and Jordyn both like the same boy, and it's a troublesome mix.
Following the attack, the police are pressed to find the 'real perpetrator', but are stymied by overprotective parents/grandparents and lies and evasions by the girls.
The story is told from the alternating points of view of Dr. Madeline Gideon - a psychiatrist; Beth Crow - Violet's mother; entries from Cora's diary; emails; texts; and police interviews. The suspense builds slowly as people do what they shouldn't.....or don't do what they should. It's maddening when a character says 'I know better than to do this'.....and promptly does it anyway.
The story brings to mind the real-life 2014 'Slender Man' incident in which two schoolgirls stabbed their classmate 19 times to please an urban myth called Slender Man.
I enjoyed this well-crafted novel which kept me guessing until the end. Recommended to fans of mystery thrillers.
Rating: 3.5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment