Innocence
- ISBN-10
- 158234356X
- ISBN-13
- 9781582343563
- Series
- Innocence
- Category
- Fiction
- Pages
- 300
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2003-06-12
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury USA
- Author
- Karen Novak
Description
Innocence unravels the mysterious tale of a small town's dark past and a current tragedy, which threatens to open old wounds and awaken old ghosts. Leslie Stone is a private investigator whose specialty is missing children. Her experience has left her haunted by hallucinatory echoes of kids who are not coming back. But when Leslie's own thirteen year-old daughter, Molly, attempts to hire her to find a vanished friend, the echoes start to take their form from Leslie's own troubled childhood. As the search for Molly's friend Lydia gets underway, it becomes apparent that there's much more to the story: a party of eighth graders at Lydia's home got out of hand and has resulted in charges of sexual assault against five thirteen-year-old boys. The once-rural town and now burgeoning suburb of Swifton Woods. Swifton has labored for decades under the stigma of an unsolved series of abductions and rapes of eleven young girls, who came to be known as the Nightingales. An incidental connection between Lydia's party and Swifton's past only fans the public response to an ugly rage. The boys' conviction seems all but inevitable. Molly, however, knows more than she's telling. In trying to honor a solemn promise while negotiating her inherent sense of right and wrong, she finds herself despised by those she most wants to help. At the same time, Leslie's increasing worry for the depth of Molly's involvement begins to weave into her own secret knowledge of the Nightingales' history. In the end, she is left uncertain of every instinct but the one that demands she protect her child. Even if that means she has to betray her own childhood by telling everything.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Innocence (with bonus short story Wilderness): A Novel
By Dean Koontz. . This is the most satisfying Koontz standalone in a while.”—Publishers Weekly “Masterful storyteller Koontz delivers perhaps his most eerie and unusual tale to date.
-
Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted
By Jim Dwyer, Peter J. Neufeld, Barry Scheck"They were still part of the investigation, and I couldn't release them. "We talked about a lot of things. We talked about boxing, sports, and he made some statements. He said the woman raped him, he didn't rape her.
-
Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality
By Tanya Katerí HernándezWhat fire!”—Junot Díaz The first comprehensive book about anti-Black bias in the Latino community that unpacks the misconception that Latinos are “exempt” from racism due to their ethnicity and multicultural background Racial ...
-
Innocence
By Jane MendelsohnIn her electrifying follow-up to the acclaimed bestseller, I Was Amelia Earhart, Jane Mendelsohn delivers a modern gothic coming-of-age story, a devastating X-ray of American culture, and a piercing, playful, and poetic exploration of the ...
-
The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth
By Kristin HenningAmerican Adolescence in Black and White -- Toy Guns, Cell Phones, and Parties: Criminalizing Black Adolescent Play -- Hoodies, Hip Hop, and Headwraps: Criminalizing Black Adolescent Culture -- Raising "Brutes" and "Jezebels": Criminalizing ...
-
Deadly Innocence
By Scott Burnside, Alan CairnsHe had already videotaped Leslie urinating and showering, at one point demanding menacingly that she flatulate for him. “Give me a big fart. ... “I'm judging you right now, okay? These next two hours are going to determine what I do to ...
-
Songs of Innocence
By Richard AleasRichard Aleas’ first novel, LITTLE GIRL LOST, was among the most celebrated crime novels of the year, receiving nominations for both the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Shamus Award.
-
Sins of Innocence: A Loveswept Classic Romance
By Jean StoneIn Jean Stone’s moving novel of what might have been, four very different women with one very powerful thing in common are reunited—with one another, and with the children they gave up for adoption.
-
Murder of Innocence
By James Patterson. . Murder of Innocence: It's impossible to resist Andrew Luster. He's rich, charming, and good-looking, and dozens of women have fallen under his spell. But Andrew is no mere womanizer.
-
The Age of Innocence
By Edith WhartonThough the novel questions the assumptions and morals of 1870s New York society, it never develops into an outright condemnation of the institution.The novel is noted for Wharton's attention to detail and its accurate portrayal of how the ...