Standing in the Shadows

The shocking murder lingered in the tabloids for weeks. A sweet elderly lady viciously killed in a town outside Cambridge, her skull crushed with a concrete block by her eleven-year-old foster child, Daryll Flatt. Hideous as the crime was, the case was closed when the boy, curled up in the crack of a willow tree, confessed to the murder. Now, two years later, the boys older brother, Howard, hires private investigator Laura Principal to revisit the case--and to answer the baffling question: Why?

On the surface, Daryll fit the mold of a child murderer perfectly--a hopeless boy abused and cast off by a wretched family. Yet as Laura Principal probes deeper, several curious facts reveal themselves. Perhaps the most alarming piece of evidence never addressed in court--Daryll was particularly agitated the day before the murder. When confronted by his teacher, he confessed: Its a secret. And Im the only one who knows.

For Laura, each question raises another, and each version of events offers conflicting views of the "heartless" boy and his "saintly" foster parent. And with each step closer to the truth, Laura Principal senses someone in the corner of her eye, a threatening presence . . . standing in the shadows . . . watching her every move.

Writing with the sparkling intelligence and razor-sharp wit that readers have come to cherish, Michelle Spring unveils a novel that is both stylish and spellbinding. Standing in the Shadows reaches new heights of psychological suspens--and heart-pounding menace.

Michelle Spring spent the first half of her life in Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and the second half in Cambridge, England, where she currently lives with her husband and two young children. Under the name Michelle Stanworth, she has had an academic career that spans two and a half decades, four academic books, an affiliated lectureship at Cambridge University, and, most recently, the Professorship of Sociology at Anglia University in Cambridge. In 1994 she published Every Breath You Take, which was nominated for both an Anthony Award and an Arthur Ellis Award as Best First Novel.