As they hurtle into midlife, Jim and his closest college friends get together to rekindle the bonds of their friendship in his family's beautiful, generations-old vacation home along Buzzards Bay, the demands of work and family having caused them to drift apart over recent years. But what begins as a quiet and restorative seaside escape takes a darker turn when Bruce, an aloof but successful writer, disappears from the house without a trace, sending the group into an uneasy tension. Meanwhile, a series of mysterious break-ins besets the town, which is the site of an old Spiritualist campground turned idyllic fishing village. After a series of uncanny disturbances at the house, Jim can't help but feel that someone—or something—is watching them from the other side of the marsh.
The new novel by the author of An Honest Living, 2022, and The Stolen Coast, 2023, is extremely well-crafted—it’s not just the superb writing but also the structure of the story, which grabs the reader from the opening paragraphs and keeps them constantly on their toes, trying to figure out what’s going on, and becoming increasingly concerned for the safety of these beautifully constructed characters. Murphy outdoes himself here, spectacularly.
Murphy establishes a palpable sense of foreboding as these unexplainable mysteries begin to accrue. He is less successful, or less interested, in resolving them, however, and the book’s final impact is dulled as a result.
Masterful ... Murphy takes time to flesh out each of his main characters before executing a series of dizzying rug pulls. It’s a devilish twist on the traditional locked-room mystery.
