cover image Stone Angels

Stone Angels

Michael Hartigan. Merrimack Media, $17.95 trade paper (340p) ISBN 978-1-939166-79-1

Hartigan’s psychological thriller is not for the faint of heart. College senior Augustine Shaw takes a vacation to Key West with three friends during his final spring break to clear his mind of his former misdeeds, but on the way back to Providence, R.I., he can no longer contain his guilt at the lives he’s destroyed and continues to affect with his lies. Shaw is a murderer, and it doesn’t take him very long in the story to confess. However, even then, he still has explaining to do. How did he come to be involved in this crime? What inspired him to kill the young woman he loved and his abusive best friend? To answer these questions, Shaw takes us back to his sophomore year of college, when he first met Lily, and then back even further to high school, where he met his future college roommate, Duncan. Their story is not a love triangle, nor is it your average boy-meets-girl saga. Instead, it is a stirring page-turner that follows a group of friends and the events that bring them together—and eventually tear them apart forever. Hartigan’s well-crafted novel moves quickly and hits hard with shocking twists that will keep readers engaged until the end. (BookLife)