In the Lonely Backwater

Book excerpt: "Maggie Warshauer remembers that summer of secrets... She knows the secrets of the rural North Carolina marina where she lives and works with her father, Drew, and she holds deep secrets about her family, a far-too-intimate view of her parents' passionate and failed marriage, her father's alcoholism. An outsider at school, insecure in her own sexual identity, Maggie "fictionalizes" a secret lover and categorizes the life around her, a project that began when she stole a copy of Linnaeus's journals. When her beautiful cousin, Charisse, disappears on prom night and is found dead in a houseboat at the marina, Maggie's cobbled-together life comes apart. As Maggie tries to come to terms with her shattered family, and with her own actions on the night of Charisse's death, the search continues for the killer. A local outcast is flushed from his hiding place, but he returns in the December dark to stalk an all-but-deserted marina looking for Maggie. All fantasies are swept aside as she must rely on her own grit and intelligence to survive. What was done in darkness will come to light, but who will pay the price for Charisse's death?"--