The Watcher — Jennifer Pashley

Hailed for her “excellent prose” and “beautifully drawn” queer characters, the award-winning author of The Scamp introduces a new series with an unforgettable female detective (Lambda Literary).

A searing literary noir set in upstate New York about what it means to live on the margins of society -- and what happens when no one is watching?

Pearl Jenkins is a nobody. She was a woman who lived as a hermit in the woods. One day, she's nowhere to be found, and all that's left behind is a pool of blood and a child no one knew existed, raised completely off the grid and in the grip of Pearl's manic paranoia.

Kateri Fisher is used to being an outsider. Now, she's the only female detective in the tiny upstate New York town of Spring Falls, where everyone knows everyone, but no one will talk. It's fitting that she takes the case that no one else wants. But as Kateri struggles to navigate the harsh rules of a new town while trying to learn the truth about the Jenkins family, only one thing becomes clear: neither she nor Pearl are as invisible as she first thought. Someone's always watching.