Lost Girls - Hardcover

Pyper, Andrew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038533446X ISBN 13: 9780385334464

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 2000

Synopsis

In Andrew Pyper's haunting first novel, the disappearance of two young girls sets in motion a nightmarish journey into darkness, as a young defense attorney returns to his beleaguered hometown to try a bizarre and macabre murder case. A gothic thriller that will catch you off guard at every turn, Lost Girls is more than a story about a chilling crime and its aftermath; it is an edgy exploration of terrors real, terrors imagined, and the ones that lie somewhere in between.

Attorney Bartholomew Christian Crane doesn't belong in the town of Murdoch. And Murdoch, a small city by the shores of Lake St. Christopher, doesn't want him there. Even Crane's client, a teacher accused of murdering two young girls, his own students, doesn't seem to care if Crane gets him off or not. But Crane loves nothing better than turning guilt into innocence, lies into truth, and winning at all costs. His boss's motto for defending a client: Don't just deny, blame someone else. Now Crane will try to do just that--until the case takes an unexpected turn, pulling Crane from the mooring of his big-city smugness and shattering the icy cocoon around his heart.

For as Crane begins to piece together a defense for his client, he finds himself being drawn into a bizarre legend at the heart of the town's history--a legend that is slowly coming alive before his eyes. Unnerved by visions he sees on Murdoch's beleaguered streets, by a woman he meets in a seedy strip club, by the ringing of a telephone down the deserted hallway of his run-down motel, Crane is beginning to suspect that what is happening to him is happening for a reason. And that the two lost girls of Murdoch may be intricately connected to the town's shameful history, and to a dark episode in his own long-forgotten past.

From its haunting opening to its shocking climax, Lost Girls dares to take us into dangerous territory. At once a classic murder mystery, an intricate legal thriller, and a novel of pure psychological terror, Lost Girls puts a powerful twist on all our expectations and confirms Andrew Pyper's place as one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary fiction.

About this title

Review

Bartholomew Crane's first homicide trial ought to be an easy win for the young, arrogant Toronto attorney. The bodies of two missing teenagers--the Lost Girls--have never been found, and there's slight forensic evidence to tie the chief suspect, a high school English teacher, to their disappearance. Dispatched to the Canadian north woods to defend Thomas Tripp against a murder charge, Crane packs his omnipresent flask of cocaine and begins preparing to demolish the Crown's flimsy, highly circumstantial case. Crane doesn't care whether Tripp is guilty; his only job is to get him off. But Crane's client won't cooperate in his own defense, and the citizens of the small, depressed town are clamoring for his conviction.

Within days, Crane's waking and sleeping hours are haunted by odd occurrences: the disturbing apparitions of a madwoman who drowned in the same mist-shrouded lake where Tripp is assumed to have disposed of his victims; the incessant ringing of a telephone down the empty hallway of his motel; the bizarre tale of a 100-year-old murder told by an elderly woman whose own daughter was claimed by the legendary Lady of Lake St. Christopher. In short order, the facts and surmises of the case become intertwined with Crane's visions and nightmares, and what had seemed like a straightforward, easily defended case based on wrongful accusation becomes a morality play in which the protagonist himself must answer for events that occurred 20 years ago.

A brooding, moody novel as dark as its setting, Lost Girls is less a courtroom drama than a ghost story hinged on a thin plot. Crane is not a particularly likable or sympathetic character, and Pyper's attempts at creating atmosphere favor the "It was a dark and stormy night" school of genre writing. But fans of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and John Saul will find this a chilly enough read to occupy just that kind of evening. --Jane Adams

From the Back Cover

Praise for Lost Girls:

"What do you call a legal thriller that is populated by ghosts and madmen and features a protagonist who is having a spectacular nervous breakdown? Lost Girls, an elegantly written debut novel by Andrew Pyper, follows standard procedure for a legal thriller, ... but everything about this dark, disquieting story confounds expectations.... Told brilliantly."
--NYTBR

"It's rare that a first novel is both brilliantly written and has a solid, carefully threaded plot, but Andrew Pyper pulls it off. Lost Girls is a terrifying thriller that successfully weaves small town ghost tales and murders with a poignant, if creepy, redemption story--. Rich in texture and rife with atmosphere."
--NY Post

"Succeeds on so many levels--as a mystery, a legal thriller, a literary character study -- compulsively appealing."
--PW
"Pyper's spellbinding debut succeeds on many levels--as a mystery, a legal thriller, a literary character study....Compulsively appealing."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This extraordinary, mature and fully realized first novel brilliantly grafts familiar bits and pieces into a stunning and original whole....A debut to remember."
--Booklist, starred review

"Exceptional... Reads as though it were the secret love child of Alice Munro and Stephen King."
--The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

"What sets Lost Girls apart is its brilliant evocation of place and mood....For readers who relish metaphor with their narrative meat, Lost Girls is a rich meal."
--Macleans -->

"A legal thriller and a ghost story.... With great skill Pyper brings this material together in a genuinely surprising climax.... Unusual and compelling."
--Chicago Tribune Books

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 038533446X
• ISBN 13: 9780385334464
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400