In 1997, college student Sara Morgan is murdered by her boyfriend, Blake Campbell, who escapes a prison sentence through a successful temporary insanity plea. Nicola Maye Goldberg organizes this narrative as a series of interconnected vignettes focusing on the women left in the wake of the crime. The chapters follow Sara’s grieving mother, a witness plagued by guilt, the lonely woman Blake later marries, and a journalist investigating the cold case. These perspectives track the ripple effects of high-profile violence through the suburbs of the Hudson Valley.
Readers of true crime fiction and psychological procedurals choose this book to observe the social aftermath of a homicide rather than the mechanics of the act itself. It attracts those interested in the fallout of judicial failure and the way a single tragedy permanently alters a local community. The audience finishes the book with a specific understanding of how collective trauma persists over decades and how the public fixation on female victims impacts the lives of those who survive them.
Inward-looking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Empathetic Explorer. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2021
- Language
- EN
