“I was badly shaped by my good fortune and so failed to see the darkness and the things that darkness hides.”

So begins the tale of Jack Branch, who has returned to his father’s Delta estate, Great Oaks, to perform an act of noblesse oblige by teaching at the local high school. Conducting a class on historical evil, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of the Coed Killer, a notorious local murderer. Jack feels compelled to mentor the boy, encouraging Eddie to examine his father’s crime and using his own good name to open the doors that Eddie’s lineage can’t. But when Eddie’s investigation leads him to Great Oaks and a friendship with Jack’s own father, Jack finds himself questioning Eddie’s motives—
and his own.

As the deadly consequences of Jack’s actions fall inescapably into place, Thomas H. Cook masterfully reveals the darker truths that lurk in the recesses of small-town lives and in the hearts of even well-intentioned men.

©Richard Perry

THOMAS H. COOK is the author of twenty-one novels and two works of nonfiction. He has been nominated for the Edgar Award seven times in five different categories, including Best Novel for Red Leaves, which was also nominated for the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Duncan Lawrie Dagger and won the Barry for Best Novel. The Chatham School Affair won the Edgar for Best Novel. He lives in New York City and Cape Cod.