Falling From The Light — Adam Smith

When a hit-and-run driver severely cripples Charlie Doyle's 10-year-old nephew in front of his house, Charlie, who's drunk, rushes him to the hospital. The boy is in a vegetative state. Did the jostling in the back seat damage his nephew's brain, a ride that also denied him oxygen that a paramedic's fitted mask would have supplied? Guilt eats away at Charlie and soon the neighborhood gossips sink their fangs into Charlie, too, rumoring that he backed over his nephew on his way to get more booze. Charlie's life begins to crumble around him as he loses his job, suspects his wife of adultery and watches his teenage daughter turn to crime. The disasters come to head on Thanksgiving Day when a massive sinkhole destroys the family dinner party. As more sinkholes threaten the neighborhood, as his life hopelessly slides down a dark sinkhole of its own, Charlie is offered a job as a Secret Insurance Agent. His mission: To spy on his neighbors in order to keep anyone from collecting on any policy. Joining forces with an unscrupulous neighbor named Effie Malfeezian, who's blackmailing Charlie, the desperate duo set out on their ruinous mission. But Charlie also uses his position as a Secret Insurance Agent to secretly look for the real hit-and-run driver. His clandestine work isn't as enlightening as he hopes, though, as it takes him on a far darker journey into himself. FALLING FROM THE LIGHT is an intense, dark satire disguised as a domestic suspense novel, a journey of self-discovery that's as well-crafted as Adam Smith's multi-award-nominated debut thriller, SCABLAND.