The Monsters We Make
A Novel
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
A rich, atmospheric family drama based on the still-unsolved true crime case that launched the infamous missing children ‘milk carton’ campaigns of the 1980s.
The disappearance of two paperboys sets off a devastating chain of events that will change their small Midwestern town forever . . .
It’s August 1984, and paperboy Christopher Stewart has gone missing.
Hours later, 12-year-old Sammy Cox hurries home from his own paper route, red-faced and out of breath, hiding a terrible secret.
Crystal, Sammy’s 17-year-old sister, is worried by the disappearance but she also sees opportunity: the Stewart case has echoes of an earlier unsolved disappearance of another boy, one town over. Crystal senses the makings of an award-winning essay, one that could win her a scholarship—and a ticket out of their small Iowa town.
Officer Dale Goodkind can’t believe his bad luck: another town and another paperboy kidnapping. But this time he vows that it won’t go unsolved. As the abductions set in motion an unpredictable chain of violent, devastating events touching each life in unexpected ways, Dale is forced to face his own demons.
Told through interwoven perspectives—and based on the real-life Des Moines Register paperboy kidnappings in the early 1980s—The Monsters We Make deftly explores the effects of one crime exposing another and the secrets people keep hidden from friends, families, and sometimes, even themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of this gripping novel from White (The Good Divide as Kali VanBaale), 13-year-old Christopher Stewart vanishes while on his early morning paper route in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1984. The aftermath of his kidnapping unfolds through the perspectives of 12-year-old paperboy Sammy Cox, who has a weighty secret; his 18-year-old sister, Crystal, an aspiring journalist who writes an essay about Christopher's disappearance; and Sgt. Dale Goodkind, of the Crimes Against Persons Section of the Des Moines PD. Two years earlier, Dale worked on the still unsolved case of another missing paperboy. The experience has left him clinically depressed, a condition he hides from his colleagues. His assignment to the Stewart case puts even more strain on his fragile mental health. His unraveling engages just as much as the search for clues. Dale, Crystal, and Sammy each evolves and becomes more self-aware as White skillfully keeps readers questioning everyone's motives. Fans of character-driven crime fiction will be satisfied.
