Getting the chance to intern during the summer for a private investigator is a dream come true for sixteen-year-old Marshall Miller. And it’s especially intense because the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana in years.
A local woman has disappeared. The last time she was seen, witnesses claim she in the backseat of a car driven by a man impersonating a police officer.
This internship puts Marshall smack in the middle of the action, and he’s relishing every moment until the praise for his sharp observations and memory turn into harsh accusations. His mentor withdraws, family and friends worry, others whisper. Only Marshall understands the darkness threatening his town, and how it extends beyond a single crime.
Now his task is to explain it—and himself.
Why we’re excited about this book:
Over the past few years, Scott Carson (a pseudonym of Michael Koryta) has rocked the world with suspenseful supernatural fiction that packs a punch. The author of The Chill and Where They Wait, Carson’s work as Koryta includes If She Wakes, The Prophet, So Cold the River, and Those Who Wish Me Dead (both adapted for the screen) among others. With his latest, Carson gives us a coming-of-age detective story about a young man thrust into an investigation with deadly supernatural repercussions. Richard Chizmar (Chasing the Boogeyman) says: “Scott Carson has done it again. Lost Man’s Lane is a richly imagined, terrifying trip down memory lane. High school keggers and small town legends, first loves and heartbreaks, serpents and secrets—it’s all here in one action-packed story. Poignant, nostalgic, and profoundly unsettling, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Carson is a spellbinding storyteller and Lost Man’s Lane is his best yet.”, and Megan Abbott (Beware the Woman, Dare Me) says: “With Lost Man’s Lane, Scott Carson fuses a gothic spellbinder steeped in old-American lore with the piercing ache of a coming-of-age story, bittersweet and filled with longing. With echoes of Ray Bradbury and Peter Straub, it’s a dazzling, genuinely terrifying novel that hovers darkly in your head long after you finish.”
Releasing 26 March 2024 from Atria Books, Lost Man’s Lane by Scott Carson is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA