Absurdly addictive fiction at its finest.
After a meaningful run working for the San Francisco Police Department as a homicide detective, Seth Wolf has returned to his hometown. Accepting the position of sergeant isn’t a promotion by any stretch, but it allows him to care for his aging parents. When the body of a lifeless young woman is found on a desolated stretch of beach, Seth’s experience is put to use and his skills become invaluable to the Lost Grove PD. The woman, Sarah Elizabeth Grahams, is local, though she’d been away at college for the past couple of years. Exactly how Sarah ended up back home dead, naked, and positioned in a pose of innocence are questions the police are determined to answer. And in a community this small, the cops aren’t the only ones wondering what happened. Her friends and family need closure. Local kids need reassurance. And the other 1,500 residents of Lost Grove need to satisfy their macabre fascination. But unsettling and unexplained things seem to be a specialty of this Victorian village. From a child-abducting green man to the distinguished Orbriallis Institute to a woman who finds the scent of a corpse “both pleasing and gag-inducing,” Lost Grove has its share of curious rumors, researchers, and residents. Even if Seth has to knock on every door in the community, he’ll do whatever it takes to unravel this mystery. Otherwise, he may never move beyond an eerily similar incident from his own past.
Partly a sleek police procedural and partly a strange soap opera, Lost Grove emerges as absurdly addictive fiction at its finest. The book features a quaint setting, a complex plot, delicious melodrama, gossipy neighbors, and a heart-stopping finish that will leave you yearning for the second act. Becoming acquainted with this novel’s long list of richly drawn characters is a dark, delightful adventure. Most of the cast are so eccentric that it’s like they majored in quirkiness in college. But a few personalities help keep the novel grounded as they deal with unremarkable day-to-day activities drenched in shades of the extraordinary. Most fascinating might be getting to know Sarah through the discombobulated trail of breadcrumbs the investigators uncover. With physical descriptions that read like police reports and character names that all bear some implicit meaning or soft foreshadowing, every element of the novel adds to the bizarre ambiance. Get ready to spend a disconcerting evening with the oddest collection of people you could ever hope to meet in Lost Grove: Part One.
