Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian


"Believe no one. Trust no one. Assume no one really knows anything that matters at all. Because, alas, we don't. All of our stories our suspect."
Inspired by a polaroid photograph of a human head indentation in sheet rock, Chris Bohjalian's dark portrait of domestic abuse is told in the alternating voices of a troubled and cynical pastor, a battered Vermont housewife, a popular self-help book writer that sees angels, and the orphaned teenage daughter of the abused wife. When Alice and George Hayward are found dead in their home (she, strangled, and he, shot in the head), everyone assumes that it is a murder-suicide, but pastor Stephen Drew becomes a suspect when his former affair with Alice becomes public knowledge. A page-turning literate thriller with a surprise ending.

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