The Cold Way Home
A Novel
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4,7 • 6 notes
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- 14,99 $
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- 14,99 $
Description de l’éditeur
"[An] emotion-charged mystery.... Keller's sleuths are easy to like and the murder story is moving; but the object of fascination here is Wellwood, a state-run mental institution with a dark history as a repository for 'rebellious, unruly women.'" —The New York Times Book Review
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Julia Keller welcomes readers back to West Virginia, where her lyrical and moving stories of the people of her native state have unfolded since A Killing in the Hills, the acclaimed first novel in the series.
Deep in the woods just outside Acker's Gap, West Virginia, rises a ragged chunk of what was once a high stone wall. This is all that remains of Wellwood, a psychiatric hospital for the poor that burned to the ground decades ago. And it is here that Bell Elkins – prosecutor turned private investigator – makes a grim discovery while searching for a missing teenager: A dead body, marred by a ghastly wound that can only mean murder.
To solve the mystery of what happened in these woods where she played as a child, Bell and her partners – former sheriff Nick Fogelsong and former deputy Jake Oakes – must confront the tangled history of Wellwood and its dark legacy, while each grapples with a private torment. Based on a true chapter in the troubled history of early treatment for psychiatric illness, The Cold Way Home is a story of death and life, of despair and hope, of crime and – sometimes, but not always – punishment.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mary Higgins Clark finalist Keller's gloomy eighth Bell Elkins novel (after 2018's Bone on Bone) finds the Acker's Gap, W.Va., prosecutor turned PI stumbling upon a body stuffed in the ruins of Wellwood, a psychiatric hospital that burned to the ground decades earlier. After learning that the victim, Darla Gilley, died of blunt force trauma to the head, Bell works with her business partners, former sheriff Nick Fogelsong and former deputy Jake Oakes, to unravel the murder. They discover that tragedy has plagued the Gilley family for generations, including the murder of Darla's grandmother who worked and died at Wellwood. Bell speculates that the two murders are somehow connected, and her sleuthing opens her eyes to a very dark history of psychiatric care during the mid-20th century. Unfortunately, unrelated albeit poignant subplots, such as Jake starting a family with his girlfriend, slow the action. Still, this is a strong addition to the series that can easily be read as a standalone.
