It is June 1971. Dominick Pindle, a tenderhearted but aimless Massachusetts teenager, spends his nights driving around with his mother and dragging his wayward father out of bars. Late one evening, Dominick's search puts him face-to-face withhis father's seductive mistress, Edie Kramer. Instantly in lust, he begins a forbidden relationship with this beautiful, mysterious woman. Before long, though, their erotic entanglement leads to a shocking death, and Dominick discovers that the mother he betrayed hid secrets as dark and destructive as his own.Charged with the exhilarating narrative pace of a thriller and set during a complicated and explosive era, Boy Still Missing is the critically acclaimed debut novel from John Searles. It renders a deeply affecting portrait of a boy whose passage into adulthood proves as complex and impassioned as the history that unfolds before his eyes.

It begins with a call one snowy February night. Lying in her bed, young Sylvie Mason overhears her parents on the phone across the hall. This is not the first late-night call they have received, since her mother and father have an uncommon occupation: helping "haunted souls" find peace. And yet something in Sylvie senses that this call is different from the others, especially when they are lured to the old church on the outskirts of town. Once there, her parents disappear, one after the other, behind the church's red door, leaving Sylvie alone in the car. Not long after, she drifts off to sleep, only to wake to the sound of gunfire.As the story weaves back and forth through the years leading up to that night and the months following, the ever-inquisitive Sylvie searches for answers and uncovers secrets that have haunted her family for years.Capturing the vivid eeriness of Stephen King's works and the quirky tenderness of John Irving's novels, Help for the Haunted is told in the captivating voice of a young heroine who is determined to discover the truth about what happened on that winter night.

It begins with a call one snowy February night. Lying in her bed, young Sylvie Mason overhears her parents on the phone across the hall. This is not the first late-night call they have received, since her mother and father have an uncommon occupation: helping "haunted souls" find peace. And yet something in Sylvie senses that this call is different from the others, especially when they are lured to the old church on the outskirts of town. Once there, her parents disappear, one after the other, behind the church's red door, leaving Sylvie alone in the car. Not long after, she drifts off to sleep, only to wake to the sound of gunfire.As the story weaves back and forth through the years leading up to that night and the months following, the ever-inquisitive Sylvie searches for answers and uncovers secrets that have haunted her family for years.Capturing the vivid eeriness of Stephen King's works and the quirky tenderness of John Irving's novels, Help for...

After a mysterious fall from his Manhattan apartment, Philip Chase has moved home with his mother, Charlene, a bitter woman who has never fully accepted the death ofher younger son, Ronnie, five years earlier. Numb from watching too much TV and trading snipes with his mother, Philip is in stasis. But everything changes one winter night when Ronnie's high school girlfriend shows up on their doorstep to deliver the news that she is pregnant ... and the father, she claims, is Ronnie.So begins the startling tale as Philip and his mother confront Melissa's past and their own. Their search for answers takes them on an emotional journey, placing them in the path of murder and revenge. At once a moving story of redemption and a heart-stopping work of suspense, Strange but True brings to life a cast of characters that no reader will soon forget.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.From Publishers WeeklyThe world Searles (Boy Still Missing) presents in his second novel is exquisitely odd yet instantly recognizable, as strange but true as the hidden life of one's next-door neighbor. The novel moves in unexpected directions throughout, most notably morphing from a family drama into a kind of mystery/thriller, but its steady gravitational pull—readers should expect to stay up late for this one—testifies to the solidity of its bedrock impressions, cast by an author with extraordinary powers of observation. Searles opens on the night that Melissa Moody, girlfriend to Ronnie Chase, who died five years earlier in a car crash after their high school prom, visits the Chases to tell Ronnie's brother, Philip, and his cantankerous mother that she's pregnant—with, she's sure, Ronnie's child. That revelation spins both Philip and his mother into some sleuthing, of Melissa's situation—could she somehow have saved Ronnie's sperm?—and into their own hearts, ravaged by Ronnie's death and its bitter aftermath, which includes Philip's recent unexplained return to his hometown of Radnor, Pa., from Manhattan. The story shuttles among various point of views and between past and present as Searles peels back layers of concealment to reveal the truths behind the turns in various people's fates, and behind Melissa's claim. Yet while readers will enjoy traveling to the heart of the mystery, what they'll cherish most in this accomplished novel are its startling real characters, with even the minor players—an ambitious Polish librarian; a lonely, aging gay pet owner—all perfectly crafted. Searle's novel should find a wide and grateful readership. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From School Library JournalAdult/High School–This novel is reminiscent of Dennis Lehane's Mystic River (Morrow, 2001) with its sharp, realistic character portrayal on top of a somewhat flawed mystery. On prom night, Ronnie Chase is killed when his limo crashes, and his girlfriend is left disfigured. Five years later, she arrives at the Chase house to tell the surviving members of his family that she is pregnant and that the baby is his. Though skeptical, they find themselves wishing that her claims were true and attempting to figure out how this could happen. Many characters share their points of view, from the Chases to Melissa to her landlords. Through these voices, their lives over the last five years are slowly revealed, and readers learn the truth behind the pregnancy. Searles has a great sense of pacing, parceling out bread crumbs of the story that entice readers to keep going. Some of his depictions are better than others–librarians in particular will find flaws in his portrayal of a suburban library branch–but on the whole, the characterization is rich and original. The prom setting, hints of the supernatural, and the satisfying if not entirely resolved ending all have solid teen appeal.–Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD