In this mesmerizing, funny, chilling novel, the setting is a small town in the 1940s Midwest, the subject the heart of a wounded and ferociously moralistic young woman, one of those implacable American moralists whose "goodness is a terrible disease". When she was still a child, Lucy Nelson had her alcoholic...
The first message sent to Tom Thorne's phone was just a picture - the blurred image of a man's face, but Thorne had seen enough dead bodies to know that the man was no longer alive. But who was he? Who sent the photograph? And why? While the technical experts attempt to trace the sender, Thorne searches the bulletins for a reported death that matches the photograph. Then another picture arrives.