The Barrens — Joyce Carol Oates

One of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary American literature turns her remarkable skills in this new novel to the complex and compelling story of a serial killer and the people his crimes touch, and transform. Matt McBride, a seemingly happily married man, remembers his first victim. He was a boy when the mutilated body of the pretty, popular, outgoing teenager was found in the desolate New Jersey Pine Barrens. Matt's memory of the atrocity haunts him still; he has long felt guilty at not having been able to prevent it, although he'd hardly known the girl. Now another attractive young woman has disappeared. Matt knew this victim, too -- and just possibly he knew her more intimately than he can acknowledge. By degrees Matt becomes obsessed with guilt, and the police view his increasingly erratic behavior with a suspicion that draws official attention away from Name Unknown, an artist of limited talent but of fierce, demented vision. Under the spell of the missing woman, Matt sets out on a path that leads him to an inevitable confrontation with both Name Unknown and his own deepest, unacknowledged self.