After Her

June 3, 2013
Bestselling author Maynard (The Good Daughters) returns with the story of a broken family rocked by a real-life Bay Area serial killer. Rachel Torricelli and her younger sister, Patty, idolized their father, a homicide detective with a voice like Dino and an insatiable love for women—especially his daughters. After divorce split up their home, he mostly disappeared, and Rachel, who recounts the story as an adult (and a mystery writer), was content playing backyard games and bossing Patty around. But their play is tinged with darkness in the summer of 1979, when murders begin occurring along Marin County’s hiking trails. The girls’ father is on the case and his sudden star power makes Rachel popular, but she can’t resist chasing clues (some courtesy of “visions”), putting her and her sister in harm’s way. Maynard captures the way that memory works in fragments: Rachel recalls “My Sharona” as the soundtrack of the summer, fusing her perspective with that of the killer, who sings it to his victims. Her retelling also flip-flops seamlessly from her teenage anxieties to the front-page news—a testament to Maynard’s narrative dexterity. This cinematic coming-of-age murder mystery satisfyingly blends suspense with nostalgia. Agent: David Kuhn, Kuhn Projects.

September 1, 2013

In summer 1979, Rachel and her younger sister Patty spend their days biking the hills of Marin County in Northern California and generally being precocious tweens, until young women begin turning up dead in the woods above their home. Their detective father is put in charge of the case that the press dubs the "Sunset Strangler." At first the notoriety of their father's high-profile case is exciting and gains them celebrity status at school, but as the case drags on and more young women die, Rachel sees her father's life unravel and her parents' marriage fall apart. Desperate to save her family, young Rachel sets herself up as bait for the killer, the consequence of which destroys her father's career and nearly costs Rachel her life. Thirty years later, the case remains unsolved, and Rachel makes one last attempt to smoke out the killer and vindicate her father, unearthing dark and startling family secrets in the process. VERDICT This title is loosely based on the Trailside Killer case that terrified Marin in the 1970s. Here the case is seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old, giving Maynard's (The Good Daughters; Labor Day) thriller an interesting twist on what would otherwise be a simple reworking of a cold case of serial murder. Rachel is so focused on saving her father and her parents' failed marriage that everything else in the world around her is merely a blur. [The film adaptation of Labor Day, starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, is scheduled for a January 2014 release.--Ed.]--Susan Clifford Braun, Bainbridge Island, WA

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