The Skeleton Box
PRAISE FOR
BRYAN GRULEY
“Bryan Gruley is a gifted writer, and in
The Skeleton Box
he’s turned his gifts to the secrets and lies that ultimately rip apart Starvation Lake. . . . Gruley writes elegiacally about small-town America, but his deepest love is for its newspaper.”
—SARA PARETSKY
“Gruley knows how to drag you kicking and screaming into a story so gripping that you’ll probably devour it in one gulp.”
—CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“An author who has mastered the conventions of his genre. Discriminating readers will be anxiously awaiting the third book in this promising series.”
—ASSOCIATED PRESS
“A major talent.”
—HARLAN COBEN
“Bryan Gruley is off to a phenomenal start!”
—MICHAEL CONNELLY
“Bryan Gruley: Remember the name. You should be hearing it often in the future.”
—SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
Does Gus Carpenter really want to know what’s inside the skeleton box? In Anthony– and Barry award–winning author Bryan Gruley’s gripping new novel, Gus must decide if the truth is better off dead and buried.
Mysterious break-ins are plaguing the small town of Starvation Lake. While elderly residents enjoy their weekly bingo night at St. Valentine’s Catholic Church, someone is slipping into their homes to rifle through financial and personal files. Oddly, the intruder takes nothing—yet the “Bingo Night Burglaries” leave the entire town uneasy.
Worry turns into panic when a break-in escalates to murder. Suddenly, Gus Carpenter, editor of the
Pine County Pilot,
is forced to investigate the most difficult story of his life. Not only is the victim his ex-girlfriend Darlene’s mother, but her body was found in the home of Bea Carpenter—Gus’s own mother. Suffering from worsening dementia and under the influence of sleeping pills, Bea remembers little of the break-in.
With the help of Luke Whistler, a former
Detroit Free Press
reporter who came north looking for slower days and some old-fashioned newspaper work, Gus sets out to uncover the truth behind the murder. But when the story leads him to a lockbox his mother has kept secret for years, Gus doesn’t realize that its contents could forever change his perception of Starvation Lake, his own family, and the value of the truth.
BRYAN GRULEY
is reporter at large for Bloomberg News and the author of
The Hanging Tree
and
Starvation Lake.
Formerly the Chicago bureau chief of
The Wall Street Journal,
Gruley shared in the Pulitzer Prize given to the newspaper for coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks. He has won the Anthony, Barry, and Strand Awards and was nominated for an Edgar Award for best first novel. He lives with his wife in Chicago.
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JACKET DESIGN BY CALVIN CHU
JACKET PHOTOGRAPH © ANDREW LE/GETTY
COPYRIGHT © 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER
ALSO BY BRYAN GRULEY
The Hanging Tree
Starvation Lake
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Bryan Gruley
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone hardcover edition June 2012
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Designed by Renata Di Biase
ISBN 978-1-4165-6366-2
ISBN 978-1-4165-6402-7 (ebook)
for kimi, karen, kathleen, mike, and dave
and in memory of our father
