Hindsight
A Novel of the Class of 1972
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times calls Barbara Rogan "a passionate writer whose prose is as vivid as lightning bolts." Now she delivers a mesmerizing tale of a long-hidden betrayal -- and its deadly repercussions.
In the summer of 1972, on the night of their high school graduation, nine friends make a solemn vow to meet in twenty years' time. For Willa Scott, flanked by her best friend, Angel, and her boyfriend, Caleb, the future is a canvas to be painted in bold strokes and bright colors. But the ensuing decades bring change and separation. Willa becomes a biographer, and she drifts away from Caleb and Angel.
Almost twenty years later, Willa, now mother of a teenage girl herself and recently widowed, looks up during a book signing and sees Patrick Mulhaven, the bad boy of Beacon High. He reminds her of their long-ago vow and persuades her to help track down their old group. It isn't long before Willa discovers that Angel's trail after high school is ice cold. It's as if she dropped off the face of the earth. Convinced that something has happened to her friend, Willa begins a search that takes her back through the looking glass. What she thought were the idyllic friendships of her youth are revealed as a tangled web of deception, betrayal, and life-shattering secrets. As the reunion weekend approaches, Willa is convinced that someone has killed -- and will kill again -- to keep Angel's whereabouts hidden forever. But when the people you know best are the people you know least, who can you trust?
Barbara Rogan has proven herself a master of subtly evolving fear, and Hindsight delivers a spellbinding story about the powerful -- and sometimes murderous -- yearnings of the human heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A reunion for long-lost high school friends is the focus of this seventh suspense novel by Rogan (Suspicion). The night of their high school graduation in 1972, nine friends agree to meet in 20 years. Over the next two decades they drift apart, but shortly before the 20-year mark, Willa Scott Durell bumps into fellow alum Patrick Mulhaven at a New York reading for her latest biography. They decide to track down the seven others and arrange the promised reunion. With the help of Joven Luisi, private eye, they find everyone except Angel Busky, the "easy" girl, who seems to have vanished completely. The rest of the novel investigates what happened to Angel, who was pregnant before she disappeared. When a second member of their gang, Vinnie Delgaudio, dies during their reunion weekend, it forces them to explore dark events from the past in which they were all complicit. Although the mystery of Angel's disappearance is suspenseful, the characterizations are weak. Each member of the gang is a standard type: Jeremiah the valedictorian, Travis the pothead, Vinnie the tough guy, etc. Their adult selves are the predictable grown-up versions of these stereotypes. These putative children of the '70s say things like "How very kind" or "I'd say you're a day late and a dollar short." In addition, the author sometimes uses distracting, convoluted syntax: "The people sent to fetch her inevitably took upon themselves her entertainment through chatter, which in turn obliged her to hold up her end just when she felt least sociable." There isn't enough substance here to create a true feeling of nostalgia, and the suspense and violence seem merely sensational.
Customer Reviews
Wonderful novel
Hindsight is a novel full of beautiful writing in service of a compelling story that unfolds into something more complex and deeper than is apparent at first. The release of several of her novels as e-books is welcome news. Every novel of hers I have had the pleasure to read has left me happy I picked it up but thinking, "Gee, I wish I could write like that." Give her work a chance. I doubt you will be disappointed.