The Story of Annie D.

A clear, dry voice, stripped of sentiment or passion, narrates an absorbing saga of love, madness and murder set in the small town of Wizen River, Neb. The voice belongs to long-widowed Annie Diettermann, who has also endured the death of two young sons. Interspersed with her bleak family history is Annie's continuing chronicle about her wealthy friend Phoebe, whose disgraced daughter Lacey is sent to California to bear an illegitimate son fathered by disreputable Casey Boots, a youngster from the unsavory section of town. Lacey, still embittered by her exile, returns nine years later for her mother's funeral and is reunited with Casey. They attempt to start a new life, and it is at this juncture that a series of crimes begins. Three young women are raped and murdered, and each victim has a lock of hair shorn. Annie D. accidentally discovers the murderer, and her solution--tragic, inevitable, wise--resoundingly closes the books on the slayings.This authentically and distinctively cadenced first novel marks a promising debut. (June)