Granite Harbor
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A small town in coastal Maine is shaken to its core by a serial killer in this crime novel from Peter Nichols, bestselling author of The Rocks
In scenic Granite Harbor, life has continued on―quiet and serene―for decades. That is until a local teenager is found brutally murdered in the Settlement, the town’s historic archaeological site. Alex Brangwen, adjusting to life as a single father with a failed career as a novelist, is the town’s sole detective. This is his first murder case and, as both a parent and detective, Alex knows the people of Granite Harbor are looking to him to catch the killer and temper the fear that has descended over the town.
Isabel, a single mother attempting to support her family while healing from her own demons, finds herself in the middle of the case when she begins working at the Settlement. Her son, Ethan, and Alex’s daughter, Sophie, were best friends with the victim. When a second body is found, both parents are terrified that their child may be next. As Alex and Isabel race to find the killer in their midst, the town’s secrets―past and present―begin bubbling to the surface, threatening to unravel the tight-knit community.
At once a page-turning thriller and a captivating portrait of the social fabric of a small town, Granite Harbor evokes the atmosphere of HBO’s Mare of Easttown with a villain reminiscent of Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A spate of gruesome killings rocks a coastal Maine town in Nichols's disquieting latest (after The Rocks). When teenager Shane Carter is found mutilated and hanging from a crossbeam in sleepy Granite Harbor's only museum, shock reverberates through the community. Untested police detective Alex Brangwen—a failed British novelist who's begrudgingly shelved his literary ambitions for the promise of a steady paycheck—starts investigating, only to find that his familiarity with and affection for his neighbors is clouding his judgment. At his boss's request, the FBI provides assistance, and digs up a possible link to a 16-year-old cold case. Then another teenager is murdered, ratcheting up panic across town and lighting a fire under Alex to catch the culprit. He teams up with single mom Isabel Dorr, whose children were friends with both victims, to ferret out answers, and their inquiry brings them face-to-face with a terrifying killer hiding in plain sight. While the pacing in the first third can be erratic, Nichols makes up for it when he unveils his bone-chilling antagonist via a lengthy, hair-raising backstory. The result is a grisly and fiendishly inventive murder mystery that will rattle even seasoned genre fans.
Customer Reviews
A good mystery/thriller
This is a mystery/ crime thriller. It gets you invested in the story immediately. The first several chapters introduce you to all the different characters and it can be slightly confusing. However, the writing is very good so you can figure out what is happening without too much drama. It has different timelines and characters. It might have been helpful to title the chapters instead of just numbering them to alert the reader that they were about to jump to the past or back to the present story. Same thing with the characters. Although it is written in third person, you still were reading about the perspective of a different character so it probably would have been helpful to name the chapters after the characters in order to alert the reader about the change that was coming. I made the mistake of reading the synopsis on the back of the book about halfway through which tells a huge part of the story. Other than that it was a good book.