PRAISE FOR THOMAS H. COOK
AND BREAKHEART HILL
“Cook has crafted a novel of stunning power, with a climax that is so unexpected the reader may think he has cheated. But there is no cheating here, only excellent storytelling.”
—Booklist
“Cook’s writing is distinguished by finely cadenced prose, superior narrative skills, and the author’s patient love for the doomed characters who are the object of his attention.… Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Gripping.… The simple plot becomes more than the sum of its parts—a haunting evocation that gains power and resonance with each twist of its spiral-like narration.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Cook is a gifted writer, and here he infuses every page with the kind of melancholy that has defined the southern gothic novel for years.”
—Plain Dealer, Cleveland
“I’m a pure fool for the kind of cadenced, melancholy, distanced-in-time prose that Cook uses here. It reminds me of To Kill A Mockingbird.… This is the best crime novel I’ve read so far in 1995 against some strong opposition, and it may well be the best on December 31st. Cook does a superb job of building and maintaining an almost relentless suspense from the opening paragraphs to the final few pages of the book. You’ll think you know who (and maybe you do) and you’ll think you know why (and I suppose it’s possible); but trust me, you won’t have guessed everything. Breakheart Hill is one of the best written and most marvelously crafted books I’ve read in a long, long time. It’s dark, and it’s sad, and it’s very, very good, a personal best from a fine writer. Read it.”
—Mystery News
“One of Cook’s most evocative, captivating and haunting [novels]…. Cook is a truly lyrical writer.… Breakheart Hill is a book to read slowly and savor, but it is so compelling that readers will be turning the pages as fast as they can. This haunting story will stay with you long after you’ve read the last page and reluctantly set it aside.”
—Flint Journal
“A thrilling story of close to unbearable suspense.”
—The Neshoba Democrat
“An opening line to rival the best. A story that also rivals the best. Breakheart Hill is first and foremost an outstanding mystery, but it is also a distinguished novel.”
—Deadly Pleasures
“A seductive mood piece.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“There’s something Conroyesque in Thomas H. Cook’s Breakheart Hill.… A book to be read for the intensity of its plot and the beauty of its words. This is a rare combination from any author, but Cook manages to pull it off. A triumph.”
—The Rockdale Citizen
“The writing here is extraordinary.… A haunting read that will stay with you a long, long time.”
—Contra Costa Times
“In the style of Pat Conroy, Thomas Cook poetically weaves a tapestry of love and deceit that will not soon be forgotten.”
—San Antonio Express-News
Also by Thomas H. Cook
Fiction
* THE CHATHAM SCHOOL AFFAIR
*PLACES IN THE DARK
*INSTRUMENTS OF NIGHT
*MORTAL MEMORY
*EVIDENCE OF BLOOD
THE CITY WHEN IT RAINS
NIGHT SECRETS
STREETS OF FIRE
FLESH AND BLOOD
SACRIFICIAL GROUND
THE ORCHIDS
TABERNACLE
ELENA
BLOOD INNOCENTS
Nonfiction
EARLY GRAVES
BLOOD ECHOES
And coming in hardcover from Bantam Books:
THE INTERROGATION
*Available from Bantam Books
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published July 1995
Bantam paperback edition / August 1996
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1995 by Thomas H. Cook.
For Susan Terner
Through the darkness,
still at my side.
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
THIS IS THE DARKEST STORY THAT I EVER HEARD. AND ALL my life I have labored not to tell it.
It goes with gray clouds and heavy rain, and when I remember it, I see her feet running over sodden ground. But actually the sun was full and bright the day it happened, and the kudzu vines they found tangled around her legs were thick and green at the end of a long spring growth. In fact, the vegetation had become so thick on the mountainside by then that even from a short distance it would have been hard to hear all that went on that afternoon, all that was said and done.
And yet there are times when I do hear certain things very distinctly: her body plunging through the undergrowth, birds fluttering from their nests, a frantic scurrying through the leaves and shrubs as small landbound creatures rush away, panicked by the same alarm that has disturbed the birds.
From time to time, though rarely, I actually hear her voice. It is faint, but persistent. Sometimes it comes in the form of a question: Why are you doing this to me?
Since then there have been many summers as beautiful as that one more than thirty years ago, and yet there is none I can recall as vividly. I remember the way the azaleas had flowered in a fiery brilliance, their red and white blooms like small explosions just above the ground, how delicate pink fluffs had hung from the mimosas, how even the great magnolias appeared to strain beneath their burden of unscented blooms. More than anything, I remember how the violets had overflowed every garden wall and window box, flooding the town with a torrent of purple flowers and filling the air with their powdery, sweet smell.
Many times during the years that have passed since then, my friend Luke Duchamp has commented on how exquisite the world seemed that afternoon. He means the flowers, of course, but there has always been an edgy tension, a sense of unanswered questions, couched within his description of that resplendent summer day.
He last mentioned it only a few days ago, and as he did so, I once again felt the truth approach me like a dark figure, grim, threatening, determined to do me harm. We’d just come from one of the many funerals that punctuate small-town life, though this one had been more significant than most, since it was Kelli’s mother who had died. We had attended it together, then returned to my house to have a glass of tea, the two of us sitting on my front porch as the sun slowly lowered over the distant range of mountains.
Luke took a quick sip from the glass, then let it drift down toward his lap. He looked thoughtful, but agitated as well, his mind no doubt recalling what he’d seen so long ago. “It’s still hard to believe that someone could do something like that,” he said.