Complicit

Jamie and Cate were adopted by the wealthy Henry family after their single mother was murdered—or maybe it was an accidental death. Younger sibling Jamie isn’t sure anymore. Jamie has worked hard to overcome his anxiety-ridden youth, and he’s doing well until Cate is released from jail after serving time for burning down a barn, killing several horses and badly burning another girl. Even more troubling, Jamie is suffering from debilitating neurological attacks that paralyze his arms and is losing track of long periods of time, all of which seems to be connected to his fears about Cate’s return. Believing there’s a secret in his past, Jamie searches for answers about his mother’s life and his turbulent childhood with Cate. Kuehn’s second novel, after her Morris Award–winning Charm & Strange, powerfully examines how mental illness can turn into family tragedy that ripples far and wide beyond a single event. The prose is as hallucinatory as the madness Jamie seeks to uncover in a novel that’s tense and ambiguous from start to finish. Ages 13–up. [em]Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (June) [/em]