From the author of the acclaimed novel Reap comes a novel based on true events. The savage murder of a young girl in a remote northern town during Vermont’s gay marriage battle unleashes the town’s darkest prejudices and fears leading to the eruption of more violence, and the arrest of a boy who swears he’s innocent. So what if he is? In Rickstad’s fiction, no one is safe. Not the characters. Not the reader. Rickstad breaks from tired convention and is unconcerned about tying the mystery in a tidy bow so you can sleep at night. Compared to Denis Johnson and Russell Banks by the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Rickstad takes an unflinching look at our darkest impulses and finds humanity hidden within.