In Wilson's pleasantly creepy debut novel, Owen Patterson, a Southern California software manual writer, believes that the "soil" of his marriage has been "poisoned" by the aftereffects of his brother-in-law's murder. The killer, Henry Joseph Raven, murdered CJ while Owen and Patty were on their honeymoon. Raven received a "twenty-odd-year" sentence, but Patty and her parents, a year later, are still in mourning. Owen, meanwhile, comes up with a convoluted...

"A well-intentioned birthday gift for Lida Stearl leads to the discovery that Clarence Lusk, on death row for the murder of Lida's sister and preparing for his final appeal, is seeking pen-pals. Lida does not think he is entitled to any such consolations, and decides to teach him a lesson: she begins to write him, pretending to be someone else. As she accumulates details of Clarence's life in prison and his connections outside it, her preoccupation...

"On a cold day in 1997, student Sara Morgan was killed in the woods surrounding her liberal arts college in upstate New York. Her boyfriend, Blake Campbell, confessed, his plea of temporary insanity raising more questions than it answered. In the aftermath of his acquittal, the case comes to haunt a strange and surprising network of community members, from the young woman who discovers Sara's body to the junior reporter who senses its connection to...