The Storm King
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Deeply atmospheric, breathlessly suspenseful, with a ticking clock like no other—a terrific thriller.”—Lee Child
Haunted by dark secrets and an unsolved mystery, a young doctor returns to his isolated Adirondacks hometown in a tense, gripping novel in the vein of Michael Koryta and Harlan Coben.
Burying the past only gives it strength—and fury.
Nate McHale has assembled the kind of life most people would envy. After a tumultuous youth marked by his inexplicable survival of a devastating tragedy, Nate left his Adirondack hometown of Greystone Lake and never looked back. Fourteen years later, he’s become a respected New York City surgeon, devoted husband, and loving father.
Then a body is discovered deep in the forests that surround Greystone Lake.
This disturbing news finally draws Nate home. While navigating a tense landscape of secrets and suspicion, resentments and guilt, Nate reconnects with estranged friends and old enemies, and encounters strangers who seem to know impossible things about him. Haunting every moment is the Lake’s sinister history and the memory of wild, beautiful Lucy Bennett, with whom Nate is forever linked by shattering loss and youthful passion.
As a massive hurricane bears down on the Northeast, the air becomes electric, the clouds grow dark, and escalating acts of violence echo events from Nate’s own past. Without a doubt, a reckoning is coming—one that will lay bare the lies that lifelong friends have told themselves and unleash a vengeance that may consume them all.
Praise for The Storm King
“Brendan Duffy’s second book mingles horror, historical fiction, supernatural suspense and old-fashioned murder mystery, the rare phantasmagoria whose pieces click into a satisfying resolution. . . . This is a gutsy, intricate, evocative piece of mischief, much closer than anyone usually gets to that particular spell cast by Stephen King.”—USA Today
“Duffy follows his debut, House of Echoes, with a stunning literary thriller, which combines accomplished wordsmithing with startling twists.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An elaborately layered, creepily atmospheric story that blends haunting legends and the psychological terror of a murderer on the hunt. A winning thriller sure to draw readers of Jennifer McMahon, Ruth Ware, and Michael Koryta.”—Booklist (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Duffy follows his debut, House of Echoes, with a stunning literary thriller, which combines accomplished wordsmithing with startling twists. Nate McHale is a husband, father, and pediatric surgeon in New York City, but he was once the Storm King of Greystone Lake in upstate New York, the leader of a band of vengeful vandals. Under cover of bad weather, Nate and his high school friends balanced "the equations of pain" by committing acts of retribution for attacks and sleights against them. Nate's high school girlfriend, Lucy Bennett, disappeared just after graduation. Now Lucy's body has recently been found, and Nate is returning to Greystone Lake for the first time in 14 years for her funeral. He must tame the "menagerie of suffering in the cages of soul" in order to fight his way through the layers of secrets, past and present, as a hurricane rages and a new wave of vandalism even more vicious than his own strikes the town. Duffy weaves Lucy's murder and town folklore into a tapestry of storm, pain, fire, and, eventually, redemption.
Customer Reviews
Intricately woven, full of twists and turns!
This intricately woven story follows the return of the prodigal son of an upstate New York lake town and swiftly lures the reader into a dark, dusty web of loss, cruelty and revenge.
Duffy creates complex characters that are unique and well-drawn. His frequent twists and turns, particularly in the latter half, make for a riveting read. A must read for 2018!
Immersive, Thrilling momentum from the beginning
A homecoming novel about Nate, a successful surgeon is forced to reckon with his tumultuous past once the body of his high school girlfriend who had disappeared the night of graduation is finally recovered. It juxtaposes how we see ourselves and what people actually think of us. Someone is watching, someone knows our darkest past better than we remember it ourselves.