A THIEF IN THE HOUSE OF MEMORY

How can Declan Steeple plan for the future when he’s haunted by the past? In this atmospheric offering, Declan and his family have never quite recovered from the disappearance of his mother six years ago. Though they moved from their ancestral home to a modern split-level almost as soon as Lindy vanished, her absence still hangs oppressively over the estranged family. Declan has no relationship with his father who’s obsessed by history and carefully re-creates wars with elaborate reconstructions of Omaha Beach. When a strangely familiar trucker dies while robbing the family home, old memories arise. Declan wonders why his father’s stories about Lindy’s disappearance don’t ring true. What is his father hiding, and does Birdy (Declan’s father’s partner since the disappearance, and Lindy’s former best friend) have anything to do with it? As Declan tries to understand his loving but childish mother’s flight, Lindy herself appears to Declan. Is he hallucinating, or is his mother’s restless spirit really roaming about, trying to convince him to play tricks on his father? Melancholy, uncanny and emotionally powerful. (Fiction. 12-15)