June 2009 Debut of the Month.

The devastating effect on a close family when their genius daughter is murdered.  The younger, carefree sister narrates this tragic tale 14 years after the event when she is at last able to piece the clues together and find a solution.  It’s an absorbing read made urgent by needing to know ‘whodunit’.  But it is much more than that, being a tale of family, loss, love and misused trust to the point of betrayal.  A clever, unusual read.

Comparison: Alice Sebold, Donna Tartt.

Synopsis

Ellie Enderlin spent most of her childhood living in her sister’s shadow. Lila was the good daughter – a mathematical genius who could do no wrong in their parents’ eyes. Whereas Ellie was younger, wilder and could never quite match up. Until one day the shape of their family changes forever. Lila is brutally murdered. In the aftermath of her sister’s death, Ellie entrusts her most intimate feelings to a man who betrays her utterly by turning the story into a bestselling true crime book - a book that both devastates her family and identifies one of Lila’s professors as her killer.

Twenty years later and two Americans meet by chance in a remote village in Nicaragua. Ellie is now a professional coffee buyer, an inveterate traveller and incapable of trust. Peter is the academic who saw his career ruined by being named as Lila’s killer. He protests his innocence and leaves Ellie with a gift - the notebook that Lila carried everywhere, a piece of evidence not found with her body. Stunned, Ellie will return home to San Francisco to explore the mysteries of Lila’s notebook, filled with mathematical equations, and begin a search that has been waiting for her all these years. It will lead her to discover more about the lover no one knew Lila had, to the motives and fate of the man who profited from their family’s anguish - and to the deepest secrets even sisters keep from each other.

Reviews

'Thoughtful, involving, intricately constructed, and well written…It's an intelligent, emotionally convincing tale about a family tragedy and the process of storytelling' Boston Globe

'Michelle Richmond is a talent to watch.' Joshilyn Jackson, author of GODS IN ALABAMA

'The whodunit in this luminous novel is not really the hunt for the killer but what drives people’s action and the decisions they make. As complex and beautiful as a mathematical proof, this gripping, thought-provoking novel will keep you thinking long after the last page has been turned...a riveting mystery about truth, loss and the power of love' Family Circle

‘A terrific literary mystery' - Daily Mail

'Perfect for fans of Donna Tartt and Alice Sebold' – Press Association

**** - OK! Magazine

About the Author

Michelle Richmond is the New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Fog. Her award-winning stories and essays have appeared in Glimmer Train, Playboy, The Oxford American, and elsewhere. She has been a James Michener Fellow, and her fiction has received the Associated Writing Programs Award and the Mississippi Review Prize. A native of Mobile, Alabama, Michelle lives with her husband and son in San Francisco, where she is at work on her next novel. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation