A story of love, murder and obsession - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch''Jayne Anne Phillips has written the novel of the year... A compulsively readable story'' STEPHEN KING''Combines a strange hypnotic and poetic power with the sharp tones of documentary evidence'' COLM TOIBIN''Superb'' SUNDAY TIMES''Absorbing and captivating'' GUARDIANChicago, 1931. Asta Eicher, a lonely widow with three children, is swept off her feet by charismatic Harry Powers. After a hasty courtship, she agrees to move across the country to Quiet Dell, his farm in Appalachia. She and her children are never seen again.Emily Thornhill, one of the few female journalists in Chicago, is sent to West Virginia to cover the case. The deeper her investigation leads, the more obsessed she becomes with Asta''s disappearance - until she finally uncovers the terrifying truth.