The Child Garden

Civil servant Gloria Harkness, the narrator of this disturbing standalone from Edgar-finalist McPherson (Come to Harm), receives an unexpected visitor one rainy night at her secluded Scottish country house: an old primary schoolmate of hers, Stephen “Stig” Tarrant, who’s still haunted by the drowning of a boy at Eden, the boarding school the then-11-year-old Stig attended. The drowning occurred while Stig, the dead boy, and several other classmates were out camping together. Eden, forced to close down by the scandal, was turned into the same institution where Gloria’s 15-year-old son, who suffers from a neurodegenerative disease, lies in a vegetative state. After Gloria and Stig happen to uncover the corpse of a classmate of Stig’s, Stig becomes the police’s prime suspect. Gloria decides to undertake her own investigation and discovers that a number of the students present on the night of the drowning have either killed themselves or suffered hardships. One surprising plot twist after another leads to a shocking ending. [em]Agent: Lisa Moylett, Coombs Moylett Literary Agency. (Sept.) [/em]