A beautiful and brutal debut. Put Steinbeck s Of Mice and Men in a blender with Scott Smith s classic crime novel A Simple Plan, then watch as Gailey hits the switch and everything in this world spins dangerously out of hand. A wonderful fast-paced read. Urban Waite, author of The Terror of Living As a powerful winter blizzard converges on a small Pennsylvania town, a local woman is found brutally murdered. All evidence points to Danny Bedford, the town outcast, when he is discovered cradling the bloody body. Danny manages to escape into the darkened woods, but he is pursued by the vindictive deputy sheriff, the victim's brothers, and distraught townspeople demanding justice. During the freezing night that follows, an intricate web of lies is uncovered, revealing that not everything in the town is quite what it seems, which sets off an unstoppable chain of events that changes the townspeople forever."