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Black Diamond Fall

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
From the acclaimed author of CLARA'S HEART and CLOUDLAND comes a rich, literary mystery based and united by two real events that occurred at Middlebury College; the disappearance of a student during winter break; and the vandalism of the Robert Frost Homestead located on one of the outer campuses. Luc Flanders has just finished playing a game of pond hockey with his college roommates when he realizes he has lost something precious and goes back to the ice to find it. He never returns, and the police department in Middlebury, Vermont are divided in their assessment of what may have happened to him. Some feel that Flanders left on his own accord and is deliberately out of touch. Others, including detectives Nick Jenkins and Helen Kennedy, suspect that harm may have come to him. As the search for Luc Flanders widens and intensifies, suspicions about several different people, including his Middlebury College roommates and ex-girlfriend arise. Unfortunately, Sam Solomon an older man with whom Luc has been having a secret relationship, cannot prove his whereabouts during the hours when the younger man may have disappeared and Solomon, too, comes under suspicion. As Luke Flanders disappears, the Robert Frost house near the Middlebury campus is vandalized. And there seems to be a link between the two events that the police are determined to discover. Alternating points of view between Luc Flanders Sam Solomon, Luc's mother and detective Nick Jenkins, BLACK DIAMOND FALL races to a disturbing and astonishing conclusion in a lush, literary mystery that could only come from the mind of acclaimed author Joseph Olshan.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 6, 2018
      On a cold winter evening in Carleton, Vt., the principal setting of this nuanced literary mystery from Olshan (Cloudland), college student Luc Flanders vanishes after playing a game of pickup hockey with his roommates. That same evening the farmhouse that once belonged to the poet Robert Frost is vandalized. Det. Nick Jenkins of the Carleton police and his colleague Helen Kennedy investigate both crimes. They interview everyone in Luc’s life: his family, friends, casual acquaintances, and his lovers—both past and present. Everyone has reasons to lie about their feelings for Luc and their exact whereabouts on the day he disappeared. When Nick and Helen uncover one untruth after another, they return to confront the suspects; and slowly, inexorably a version of the truth about Luc’s life emerges, and in a sense, his life defines the lives of those closest to him. Readers will enjoy following the detectives as they uncover a link between the two crimes, but the real core of the book concerns the lies people tell each other and themselves.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from September 15, 2018
      Here's another stunning literary thriller set in rural Vermont (following Cloudland?, 2012) from critically acclaimed author Olshan, this one clearly demonstrating his mastery of the character-driven crime novel. The characters are so carefully defined that readers feel their presence deeply; sometimes it's the same lurking presence that the young Middlebury College student Luc Flanders feels in the opening pages, but, later, after Luc disappears following a pond hockey game, there is the deceptive and despairing presence of Luc's family and friends. As a determined police detective attempts to figure out what happened to Luc, we gradually learn more about the student and those around him, including the fact that he had been having a secret relationship with an older man, Sam Solomon, a poignant figure who emerges, along with Luc's mother, Eleanor, as a fully developed, multifaceted character. The cold and snow are also a continuing presence?unrelenting and threatening to further obliterate the truth. Olshan sets his novel in the present, allowing for the extensive cellphone and social-media activity that are crucial in solving the crime, but it is based on two historical events, the 1971 disappearance of a Middlebury College student and the 2007 vandalism of the Robert Frost Homestead in nearby Ripton. As much an engrossing and rich examination of the consequences of desire as it is a painstakingly and sublimely constructed mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

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  • English

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