Locust Lane

At the start of this uneven mystery from Amidon (The Real Justine), Patrick Noone, whose life went off the rails after his teenage daughter fatally overdosed on heroin, hits a dog late one late night while driving impaired in Emerson, Mass. When he tries to tend to the animal, he spots a man hiding in some trees. He thinks little of the incident until he learns that the house the man had been lurking near was the site of the recent bludgeoning murder of teenager Eden Perry, the dog’s owner. Meanwhile, the police focus on three of Eden’s peers: spoiled rich boy Jack Parrish; Jack’s girlfriend, Hannah Holt; and Christopher Mahoun, the shy son of an immigrant. As the suspects’ parents try to ascertain the truth and protect their children, Patrick gets drawn into the case. Amidon doesn’t pull punches in his grim resolution of the murder puzzle, but readers should be prepared for some awkward prose (“The thought of that not happening added another small boulder to the sled of sadness he was tugging through the frozen tundra of his life”). This works better as a character study than a whodunit. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner Literary. (Jan.)