INTERNATIONAL THRILLER AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR On the surface, Ashford, Vermont, seems like a quaint New England college town, but to those who live among the shadowy remains of its abandoned mills and factories and beneath its towering steel bridges, it's known as Burntown. Eva Sandeski, who goes by the name Necco on the street, has been a part of Burntown's underworld for years, ever since the night her father, Miles, drowned in a flood that left her and her mother, Lily, homeless. Now, on the run from a man called Snake Eyes, Necco must rely on other Burntown outsiders to survive. As the lives of these misfits intersect, and as the killer from the Sandeski family's past draws ever closer, a story of edge-of-your-seat suspense begins to unfurl with classic Jennifer McMahon twists and turns.

ldquo;McMahon’s latest is bar-raising. . . . . A stunning genre blend of thriller and fantasy.” --Booklist

Autorentext

Jennifer McMahon

Klappentext

INTERNATIONAL THRILLER AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR

On the surface, Ashford, Vermont, seems like a quaint New England college town, but to those who live among the shadowy remains of its abandoned mills and factories and beneath its towering steel bridges, it's known as Burntown.

Eva Sandeski, who goes by the name Necco on the street, has been a part of Burntown's underworld for years, ever since the night her father, Miles, drowned in a flood that left her and her mother, Lily, homeless.

Now, on the run from a man called Snake Eyes, Necco must rely on other Burntown outsiders to survive. As the lives of these misfits intersect, and as the killer from the Sandeski family's past draws ever closer, a story of edge-of-your-seat suspense begins to unfurl with classic Jennifer McMahon twists and turns.

Zusammenfassung
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Winter People comes a novel of edge-of-your-seat suspense starring a group of misfits trying to outsmart a killer in small-town Vermont.

On the surface, Ashford, Vermont, seems like a quaint New England college town, but to those who live among the shadowy remains of its abandoned mills and factories and beneath its towering steel bridges, it's known as Burntown. 

Eva Sandeski, who goes by the name Necco on the street, has been a part of Burntown's underworld for years, ever since the night her father, Miles, drowned in a flood that left her and her mother, Lily, homeless. 

Now, on the run from a man called Snake Eyes, Necco must rely on other Burntown outsiders to survive. As the lives of these misfits intersect, and as the killer from the Sandeski family's past draws ever closer, a story begins to unfurl with classic Jennifer McMahon twists and turns.

Leseprobe
Before

June 16, 1975

Miles

His mother glides across the flagstone patio slowly, hips and long legs working in time with the music, a kind of undulating dance that reminds Miles of the way tall grass moves just before a thunderstorm. She clutches a drink in her hand—­a mint julep in a sweating glass with daisies painted on the side. Captain and Tennille sing from the tinny portable radio that rests on the table: Love, love will keep us together.

She hums as she dances her way to the aluminum-­framed lounge chair. The brass elephant charm on her beaded bracelet swings, sniffing the air with its trunk. Miles loves the elephant bracelet. She won’t say where she got it, but she’s been wearing it for almost a month now.

In her white cotton dress and gold sandals, she looks like one of the goddesses from the book of Greek mythology Miles has been reading. Aphrodite maybe. Her toenails are painted a rich velvety plum, her skin is a summery bronze, and her light brown hair is highlighted with gold and feathered back from her face. She sits down in the chair, resting her glass on the little metal table beside it. She picks up the pack of Pall Malls and shakes out a cigarette.

Miles holds his breath and shifts uneasily in his hiding spot. He’s on his belly behind the rock garden, stretched out like a snake as he watches his mother across the yard.

She’d promised to quit. But she keeps cigarettes hidden in the bookcase, behind the huge, leather-­bound classics no one in their house ever reads: Moby-­Dick, David Copperfield.

Miles has told his mother about the movie they watched in health class—­the images of the healthy, pink lungs and the dark, mottled smokers’ lungs. He hates to imagine that his mother’s lungs might look like the sooty inside of a chimney; worse still, he hates to think of her dying, which is what his health teacher, Mrs. Molette, says will happen if you smoke. Your lungs will become blackened. Diseased. They will not work anymore. They will not bring oxygen to your body. Without oxygen, you die.

“And I might get hit by a bus, too,” his mother had said when he repeated this. “Or struck by lightning. Or the brakes could go out on my car and I could go over a cliff.”

Miles has to admit that this last scenario seems possible, too. His mother drives an old MG convertible coupe that was a wedding present from her parents. It’s spotted with rust, and spends more time in the shop than out. Miles’s dad wants to trade it in for something more practical—­a nice station wagon maybe, like all the other moms drive. Miles tries to imagine his mom behind the wheel of a station wagon, like Mrs. Brady on The Brady Bunch, but his mom is no Mrs. Brady. And his mom loves her old MG. She’s even named it. Isabella, she calls it, the name sounding musical. And sometimes, she’ll say she’s running to the store for milk and Frosted Flakes but then be gone for hours. Miles asks her where she goes and she says, “Just driving. Just me and Isabella and the open road.”

It seems like every week some new, impossibly expensive imported part breaks: a valve, a pump, a drum . . . things that, to Miles, sound more like body parts than car parts. But when a car part breaks, you take the car in to Chance’s garage and they order a new part and replace it. You can’t do that with blackened, cancer-­filled lungs.

He has to find a way to stop her.

That’s why, earlier today when she was out at the market, Miles stole his mother’s hidden pack of cigarettes. It was half-­empty, with only ten cigarettes remaining. He took out two, and carefully worked half the tobacco out of the paper. Then, just as carefully, he replaced it with the two paper packets he’d made, each filled with black powder from his toy gun caps along with a pinch of sulfur from his chemistry set. Once the tobacco was placed back on top, they looked just like the other cigarettes. He wanted her to get a few good drags in before a small, stinking explosion would turn her off of smoking forever.

Ten cigarettes, two of which will explode. The chances she’s chosen one just now are one in five. Miles likes numbers, understands odds. Hunkering down, he watches as she lights up.

He’s wearing his Robin Hood costume: green corduroy pants that are a little too tight, tall cowboy boots, and one of his father’s brown work shirts with a tag that makes Miles’s neck itch, but he forces himself to be still, not to scratch. The shirt is cinched at the waist with a thick leather belt that holds his wooden sword. A quiver of arrows is on his back, and he holds his homemade bow in his hands. His father had helped him make the bow and arrows, had even made sharp metal arrowheads for them, reminding Miles that these were not toys and he needed to be careful. His mother wasn’t impressed: “Wonderful, Martin. And I suppose you’ll deal with it when he kills one of the neighborhood …