Crossroad
A Novel
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
On a desolate road in the Oregon high desert, an apprentice mortician stumbles upon a horrific car crash--and into a vortex of treachery, long-buried secrets, and growing menace.
Melisende Dulac is a fish out of water after relocating from the East Coast to a small community in the Oregon high desert. But just as she's beginning to think of Barlow County as home, her life takes an ominous turn when she comes upon a grisly multiple car wreck and three shattered bodies on an isolated road outside of town. Near the scene, Melisende trips over a fourth body, that of a newborn girl lying a physics-defying distance from the wreckage. There is no one to claim the infant, nor a clear indication she was even part of the accident.
The crash offers plenty of opportunities for an apprentice mortician--but when the victims' bodies are stolen from her family's mortuary, Melisende is branded suspect number one. Then, Portland lawyer Kendrick Pride arrives on the scene on behalf of one of the victim's families--or so he says--and Melisende begins to see that there's much more to this enigmatic figure than meets the eye.
As the shadows gather and the mystery deepens, Melisende must race to find the truth--or be swallowed by the darkness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Soon after Melisende Dulac, the narrator of this engrossing mystery from Cameron (the Skin Kadash series, as Bill Cameron), moves from Massachusetts to a small Oregon town to become an apprentice mortician, she's first on the scene of a fatal car accident. She immediately spots the bodies of two men and a teenage boy, and later, at a long distance from the wreck, the body of a newborn. Things gets stranger after the bodies, stored in the mortuary, disappear, and scattered ashes are found in the crematorium, along with a skull from an unknown corpse. Since Melisende was the last person to see the bodies, the police suspect she stole them. When the person who represents the teenage boy's family discovers a bullet casing at the scene and concludes the crash was no accident, Melisende begins to investigate. The stakes rise as she delves into an uncertain situation not knowing whom to turn to for help. Cameron keeps the surprises coming. This pulse-pounding tale begs to be read in one sitting.