This Never Happened — Elly Summers

A violent crime propels a man to explore shocking truths about his family's past--things he's been told, and has told himself, never happened--in this compulsively readable, intelligent novel of psychological suspense.

Richard Hayes gets a call late at night: His sister has murdered her husband. The origins of the violence probably lie in the complex story of their family's past, and in order to save Claire, Richard is forced to go back and back, down and down, to try to unearth what really happened at the family farm, to uncover the truth about his wealthy and respected family, and his own possible role in shocking events. Was Claire's act self-defense? Did she believe, in a vivid moment of painful memory, that the man she killed was someone else?

Like Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides, This Never Happened explores how secrets buried in a family's past can threaten to destroy the present and how, in the process of helping his sister, a man begins to find himself and come alive again--in a new love affair, and in his relationship to the past, present, and future.