The Gallagher Place

In this taut debut mystery, a woman reexamines her assumptions about her friend’s decades-old disappearance. Marlowe Fisher spent the best days of her childhood at the Gray House, her family’s remote farm in the Hudson Valley. She, her brothers, and her best friend, Nora, grew up roaming the fields and surrounding forest in between chores and helping their neighbors, the Gallaghers, with odd jobs. The idyll ended, though, when a teenage Nora took out the garbage one night and never came back. Twenty years later, Marlowe still struggles with the loss as a freelance illustrator in New York City. Then her family uncovers a corpse on their land, near the Gallaghers’ old farm, and the discovery recasts a heated land dispute from decades back as a potential motive for a murder. As detectives descend on the property and new truths emerge about both the Gallaghers and the Fishers, Marlowe is forced to revisit the summer Nora disappeared and comb her memories for clues. Doar toggles between past and present with an exceptionally steady hand, maintaining momentum without giving anything away too quickly. The narrative culminates in a heartbreaking finale that will haunt readers long after the final page is turned. Doar nails it on her first time out. Agent: Steven Chudney, Chudney Agency. (Dec.)