The Distant Dead — Heather Young

A young boy finds himself at the center of a murder mystery in this timely and twisty thriller from the author of the acclaimed The Lost Girls―a compelling and indelible story set in small town America that examines the burden of guilt, the bitter price of forgiveness, and the debts we owe our dead, both recent and distant.

A body burns in the high desert hills. A young boy walks into a fire station, pale with the shock of a grisly discovery. A middle school teacher worries when her colleague is late for work. By day's end, when the body is identified as local math teacher Adam Merkel, a small Nevada town will begin its reckoning with a brutal and calculated murder.

Adam Merkel left a university professorship to teach middle school math in Lovelock seven months before he died. A quiet, seemingly unremarkable man, he connected with only one of his students: Sal Prentiss, a lonely sixth grader who lives on a remote ranch in the hills with his uncles. The two outcasts developed a tender, trusting friendship that brought each of them hope in the wake of tragedy. But it is Sal who finds Adam's body, charred almost beyond recognition, less than two miles from his uncles' ranch.

Nora Wheaton is the middle school's social studies teacher. Twelve years ago she returned to the hometown she hates to care for her disabled father, a drunk who crashed his car and killed her brother. As she delves into Adam's past for clues to who killed him, she confronts difficult truths about her relationship with her father and draws closer to Sal, who not only holds the key to solving Adam's murder but may offer her a chance at the life she thought she'd lost.

Jake Sanchez is the volunteer on duty at the fire station when Sal reports finding Adam's body. Jake loved Sal's mother from a forlorn distance, and since her death he's tried to keep an eye on Sal. He, too, thinks Sal knows more than he's telling about the night Adam died, and when Nora shows up asking questions, he becomes her ally in her quest for the truth.

As Nora and Jake piece together Adam Merkel's final moments, and Sal struggles with the weight of the secrets he carries, all three must reckon with blame and regret, the weight of the past and the promise of the future, and the bitter freedom that forgiveness can bring.