The Secrets on Chicory Lane — Raymond Benson

Sixty-one-year-old Shelby Truman, a romance novelist, has received a request to visit her childhood friend, Eddie, who is on Death Row. Though mentally ill, Eddie is scheduled to be executed for the disturbing, brutal Satanic murders of his wife and unborn child.

As Shelby travels home to Texas for the unnerving reunion, she steps back into memories of her past, recalling her five-decade-long relationship with Eddie in order to understand what led the beautiful but troubled boy who lived across the street to become a murderer. Shelby and Eddie used to visit an abandoned fallout shelter in Eddie's backyard, a “secret” hiding place where they could escape Eddie's father's violent abuses, and the venue for their innocent children's playtime and, as they grew up, adolescent explorations. As they grow increasingly close, a tragedy occurs one July fourth: Shelby's baby brother is kidnapped, an event that sets in motion a lifelong struggle against an evil that has corrupted their all-American neighborhood. And perhaps the most evil house of all on Chicory Lane belongs to Mr. Alpine, a single man who gifts children with toys and treats―and who hangs the photographs he takes of infants on his living room wall.

With only a few days left for Eddie to live, Shelby braces herself for a reunion that promises to shed light on the traumatic events that transpired on her street, changing everything Shelby thought she knew about the boy on Chicory Lane.