The Quiet Child
It's the summer of 1954 and the residents of Cottonwood, California are dying. At the heart of it all is six-year-old Danny McCray, a strange and silent child who never speaks, who brings illness and ruin to those around him, and whose own mother is plagued by a disease that may soon destroy her.
Sheriff Jim Kent has watched his town suffer. He is aware of the whispered conversations that speak of taking drastic action to protect the lives of those who remain. Then one evening a stranger arrives and Danny and his ten-year-old brother go missing. In the search that follows, everyone is a suspect, and the consequences of finding the children may be worse than not finding them at all.
From the award-winning author of The Absence of Mercy and The Forgetting Place comes a story about suspicion, loyalty, desperation, and the price we are willing to pay to protect the ones we love.
Praise For The Quiet Child:
“The Quiet Child is a riveting novel that engages both heart and mind. John Burley has an eye for detail, a feel for story, and a deep sympathy for his characters.”
“Packed with tension and unexpected twists, The Quiet Child is a powerful psychological thriller set in a time before the emergence of forensic science.”
“The Quiet Child is a beautifully realized thriller, full of striking imagery and so haunting that I thought about it for days afterward. It starts with a parent’s greatest nightmare — your child being abducted — and goes a step beyond: What might make you question whether you wanted them back? John Burley is a fearless talent.”
“In this atmospheric thriller, John Burley takes us on a heart-breaking journey to find two kidnapped boys and solve the riddle of why they were taken from a small California town. Eerie, troubling, and masterfully written, The Quiet Child is a captivating synthesis of classic suspense and the supernatural. Burley is a writer who understands the bonds of family and knows how to keep the reader in suspense until the last page.”