The Start of Everything
A Keene and Frohmann Mystery
-
-
4.6 • 5 Ratings
-
-
- $4.99
-
- $4.99
Publisher Description
From the author of Look For Her
“Emily Winslow is a precise and expert analyst of the darkest parts of the human psyche.”
— Sophie Hannah, New York Times bestselling author of Closed Casket
Outside the city of Cambridge, England, the badly decomposed body of a young woman has washed up in the flooded fens. Detective Inspector Chloe Frohmann and her partner, Detective Chief Inspector Morris Keene, must identify the victim and uncover what malice hid her there.
Across the hallowed paths and storied squares of Cambridge University, the detectives follow scant clues toward the identity of the dead girl. Eventually, their search leads them to Deeping House, an imposing country manor where, over the course of one Christmas holiday, three families, two nannies, and one young writer were snowed in together. Chloe begins to unravel a tangled web of passions and secrets, of long-buried crimes and freshly committed horrors. But in order to reveal the truth—about mysterious letters, devastating liaisons, and murder—she may have to betray her partner.
In this stunning psychological thriller, Emily Winslow has crafted a literary prism. With uncommon perceptiveness, she tells her story through the eyes of many intricately drawn characters: a troubled young woman in the University’s dead-letter office, an astronomy professor full of regret, an anxious man willing to kill to keep his past hidden. As their beautifully rendered stories coalesce, a piercing and haunting truth emerges. Masterful and memorizing, The Start of Everything will captivate to the very last page.
Published by William Morrow
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A misaddressed letter connects the threads of Winslow's sometimes compelling but ultimately frustrating second novel (after The Whole World). When a badly decomposed body is discovered in a fen near Cambridge University, the case lands with Det. Insp. Chloe Frohmann and her partner, Det. Chief Insp. Morris Keene, recently back on the job after a violent encounter with a suspect left him with limited use of his right hand. In the Cambridge registrar's office, Mathilde Oliver, who seems to have something akin to Asperger's, becomes obsessed with a series of letters written by a man named Stephen to a woman named Katja, whose connection to the nameless corpse soon emerges. The detectives wrestle with demons both personal and professional, including Chloe's misplaced guilt over Morris's injury, as their search leads to a renovated manor house and the twisted lives of its inhabitants. Despite the characters' flashes of depth, the excessively complicated plot makes for slow-going.
