We Are Watching

Edgar winner Gaylin (The Collective) delivers a timely thriller about the nefarious workings of cults and conspiracy theorists. Meg Russo and her husband, Justin, own a bookstore in the small town of Elizabethville, N.Y. The couple lives a quiet life with their 18-year-old daughter, Lily, a musician intent on following in the footsteps of her off-the-grid grandfather, who achieved minor rock stardom years earlier. While driving to Ithaca, N.Y., to move Lily into college, the family gets in a nasty car crash; Justin dies, and Meg, who was behind the wheel, blames herself. Back in Elizabethville, she finds the bookshop vandalized and videos across the internet accusing her and her family of practicing satanism. Quickly realizing that she, Justin, and Lily have become the targets of a doomsday cult, Meg wrestles with revealing secrets she’s been hiding from her daughter for decades, including the story behind a book Meg published when she was a teenager, and details about Lily’s grandfather. Gaylin matches her lucid, propulsive prose with crackerjack plotting. This will grip readers from start to finish. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary. (Jan.)