cover image Surrender the Dead

Surrender the Dead

John Burley. Morrow, $16.99 trade paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-06-243187-5

When veterinarian Erin Reece finds out her estranged father is critically ill, in this uneven psychological thriller from Burley (The Quiet Child), she reluctantly leaves her practice in Colorado and drives to her hometown in northeastern Montana to visit him. The return unearths dark memories of a childhood during which 16 people vanished over a three-year span, including her own mother. When Erin learns that skeletal remains have been uncovered on her father’s farm, she’s faced with the possibility that her father is a serial killer—and that some troublesome secrets from her past may not be as buried as deeply as she thought. Distinctive characters and assured prose (“The aqueduct stretched below her, its long concrete spine like the remains of a dead animal lying in the dust”) help compensate for the nonlinear plot’s clarity and flow issues and a predictable conclusion. Burley has enough talent that readers will want to see more of his work. Agent: Paul Lucas, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Jan.)