How Will I Know You?

October 24, 2016
At the start of Treadway’s predictable novel, less a mystery than a meditation on loss and betrayal, missing teen Joy Enright is found strangled to death at the edge of a frozen pond in upstate New York. The interim police chief is determined to convict Martin Willett, a black graduate student. Martin recently ended an affair with Joy’s white mother, Susanne, who was his teacher and was spotted near the scene when Joy vanished. Martin maintains his innocence, though, and Susanne is desperate to believe him, so she hires the chief’s son-in-law, Tom, to investigate. The book weaves back and forth in time, with Martin, Susanne, Tom, and Joy’s best friend, Harper, sharing the narrative. Treadway (Lacy Eye) explores the effect of Joy’s death on her family and their community, in addition to examining racism’s role in small-town justice. Unfortunately, while Susanne is a fully fleshed character whose guilt and grief are palpable, everyone else is a caricature, undercutting the plot’s heft and depth. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, Inkwell Management.

October 1, 2016
Treadways (Lacy Eye, 2015, etc.) thoughtful mystery explores the aftermath of a young girls murder and the effects her absence has on those closest to her.Joys body is found a month after she goes missing and was presumed drowned. Her parents and best friend, already in mourning, are now faced with the additional fact that she was strangled. When the interim police chief arrests one of the few black men in town because of a single witness, the consequences take their toll on everyone: the accused, his lover, the chiefs daughter and her husband, and Joys best friend. Told out of chronology and through different characters' voices, with sections titled Before, After, and, finally, During, the novel steadily composes a poignant portrait of Joy fragment by fragment, but despite being the center of the narrative, she is not the central character. The focus is more clearly on her friends and family, exploring how they are able to find redemption and peace as they come to terms with their loss. Though it can be read as a mystery, the book is more truly a set of complex character sketches revealing deep flaws and human weaknesses but also examining how people live with their most devastating mistakes. The secondary theme of societys casual racism seems timely, and Treadway does a good job gently exposing the divide that still exists in our country, especially at times of high tension. In the end, this is a novel about relationships and the conflicts between friends, parents and children, husbands and wives that we all must navigate every day. The murder is just a catalyst. Nuanced, probing, and honest. Well worth a read.

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July 1, 2016

After high school senior Joy Enright's body is found by the side of a pond in some upstate New York woods, it's quickly determined that she did not drown but was strangled. The following investigation is told from the perspectives of Joy's college professor mother, her best friend, the graduate student suspected of the crime, and rescue diver Tom. Following the successful Lacey Eyes; structured like a psychological thriller but as much a story of relationships.

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