13 1/2: A Novel

Barr, Nevada

3.38

4,106 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 1501276182 ISBN 13: 9781501276187

Publisher: Brilliance Audio, 2015

With 13 �, Nevada Barr, New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning Anna Pigeon novels, has written a taut and terrifying psychological thriller. It carries the reader from the horrifying 1970s murder spree of a child—dubbed “Butcher Boy” by a shocked public—in Rochester, Minnesota, to Polly, the abused daughter of Mississippi “trailer trash,” to post-Katrina New Orleans.

In Jackson Square in the French Quarter a tarot card reader told Polly Deschamps she would be a success. Thirty years later, Polly is a respected professor of literature with good friends and her own home—a safe life for her and her two daughters.

Butcher Boy, released on his seventeenth birthday, shook the snow from his boots and headed south.

New Orleans, a Mecca for runaways then and now, offers sanctuary but never forgiveness.

When Polly falls in love with Marshall Marchand, a restoration architect who is helping to rebuild her adopted city, shadows of the past rise out of the poisoned ground of New Orleans as thick and deadly as the toxic waters of the flood.

Like history, some crimes are doomed to repeat themselves. Evil stays the same, only the victims’ names change. As two broken pasts collide in an uncertain present, Polly is determined that her children’s names will never be on that list.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover:

In 1971, the state of Minnesota was rocked when coverage of the "Butcher Boy", who brutally murdered his own family, swept across newspapers and television screens nationwide. Now, in present-day New Orleans, Polly Deschamps finds herself at yet another lonely crossroads in her life. No stranger to tragedy, Polly was a runaway at the age of fifteen, escaping a nightmarish Mississippi childhood.

But then Polly encounters architect Marshall Marchand and is immediately smitten. Marshall is handsome, charming and intelligent, and before long, even Polly's daughters from her previous marriage love him. Inevitably, they marry. As Polly begins to settle into her new life, she becomes uneasy about her husband's increasing dark moods. And then there's the ominous prediction by a New Orleans tarot card reader that says Polly will murder her husband. Could Marshall and his eccentric brother, Danny, be keeping a dark secret from Polly, one that will shatter the happiness she so desperately wants?

About the Author:

Nevada Barr is the award-winning author of thirteen previous Anna Pigeon mysteries, including the New York Times bestsellers Hard Truth and High Country. She lives in New Orleans.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.