The Damage
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4.1 • 10 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An edgy, propulsive read about what a family pushed to the brink will do in the name of love and blood.
"The Damage pulled me in from the first page with smart narration, characters I cared about, a hold-your-breath plot, and a terrific final twist. Put this one high on your summer list." —Stephen King
Tony has always looked out for his younger brother, Nick. So when he is called to a hospital bed where Nick is lying battered and bruised after a violent sexual assault, his protective instincts flare and a white-hot rage begins to build.
As a small-town New England lawyer, Tony’s wife, Julia, has cases involving kids all the time. When Detective Rice gets assigned to this one, Julia feels Nick is in good hands. Especially because she senses that Rice, too, understands how things can quickly get complicated. Very complicated.
After all, one moment Nick was having a drink with a handsome stranger; the next, he was at the center of an investigation threatening to tear not only him but his entire family apart. And now his attacker, out on bail, is disputing Nick’s version of what happened.
As Julia tries to help her brother-in-law, she sees Tony’s desire for revenge—to fix things for Nick—getting out of control. Tony is starting to scare her. And before long, she finds herself asking: Does she really know what her husband is capable of? Or of what she herself is?
Exploring elements of doubt, tragedy, suspense, and justice, The Damage is an all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Beaten unconscious and bloodied, 20-year-old college student Nick Hall survives what he describes to the police as a brutal sexual assault by the deceptively charming older man who picked him up at a bar in Salisbury, Maine, in Wahrer's powerful if flawed debut. Neither Nick nor those closest to him—his fiercely protective big brother, who rescued him from abuse by their alcoholic father, and his supportive sister-in-law, a lawyer in their rural community—quite anticipates the devastating emotional toll the slow-moving justice system will take on them, especially once the accused rapist's family and friends unleash an aggressive PR smear campaign. Telling the story largely in flashbacks helps the author, herself a Maine attorney, maintain suspense and tease several major plot twists. Though the final shocker ranks strictly as a deus ex machina at odds with the novel's convincing local color, family dynamics, and criminal procedure, Wahrer offers an illuminatingly different slant on many of the stereotypes surrounding rape cases by making her survivor a gay man. Readers can expect thought-provoking, well-plotted psychological suspense from a bracingly fresh voice.
