Rabbit Hole - Hardcover

Brody, Kate

 
9781641294874: Rabbit Hole
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1641294876 ISBN 13: 9781641294874
Verlag: Soho Crime, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

A page-turning debut mystery that’s as addictive as a late-night Reddit binge, about a grieving woman obsessed with solving her sister’s cold-case disappearance via the true crime fandom

Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, My Favorite Murder, and Fleabag

Ten years ago, Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom’s older sister, Angie, went missing. Her case remains unsolved. Now Teddy’s father, Mark, has killed himself. Unbeknownst to Mark’s family, he had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, and Teddy can’t help but fall down the same rabbit hole.

Teddy’s investigation quickly gets her in hot water with her gun-nut boyfriend, her long-lost half brother, and her colleagues at the prestigious high school where she teaches English. Further complicating matters is Teddy’s growing obsession with Mickey, a charming amateur sleuth who is eerily keen on helping her solve the case.

Bewitched by Mickey, Teddy begins to lose her moral compass. As she struggles to reconcile new information with old memories, her erratic behavior reaches a fever pitch, but she won’t stop until she finds Angie—or destroys herself in the process.

Rabbit Hole is an outrageous and heart-wrenching character study of a mind twisted by grief, a biting critique of the internet’s voyeurism, and an intriguing exploration of the blurry lines of female friendship.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kate Brody lives in Los Angeles, California. Her work has previously appeared in Lit Hub and The Literary Review, among other publications. She holds an MFA from NYU. Rabbit Hole is her debut novel.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Ten years to the day after my sister’s disappearance, my father kills himself. It’s a sleepy Friday night like any other when he drives his car through the rotting barn wall of the most beautiful bridge in town and plunges himself into the shallow waters below. The same shallow waters where divers in seal suits panned for Angie’s remains when all of our better leads ran cold. He doesn’t vanish like she did. He isn’t swept away with the current. His car isn’t even fully submerged. He lands in the rocks, bumper sticking out from the water like a bad joke.
     Mom and I stand at the edge of the road in police overcoats, watching as state authorities dredge the car from the riverbank with their big tow trucks. The local cops tape off the entrance to the bridge, which looks like it was hit with a wrecking ball. The sheriff they sent up from Portland tells us there are only nine covered bridges left in the state. Eight now, if they can’t restore this one. It’s the first thing he says. Only after Mom apologizes, only after she assures him that her husband must have been trying to veer off the road sooner, must have been trying to miss the bridge entirely and cut across the steep patch of nothing between the start of the bridge and the end of the guardrail, only after she insists that he must have simply been going too fast, turned a second late, wound up on the bridge—only then does the sheriff volunteer that my dad was killed on impact. He didn’t drown. Small mercies.
     My mom thanks the sheriff, and his face softens when he hears her lovely, musical brogue. She turns it up for the occasion, leaning into each lilting syllable.
     Mark loved that bridge, she says.
     The man pats her shoulder.
     I think: I wish it ever stopped raining long enough for me to light this fucking bridge on fire. I wish I could throw a match and engulf the ancient lumber in flames, but I know that it would only self-extinguish in a leftover pile of muddy snow.
     For years later, at night, all I will be able to think about is the butt-end of the car sticking up like that and the feeling that, if he wanted to, he could have unbuckled his seatbelt, opened his door, and walked out. From this day forward, Angie will appear in my dreams soaking wet, lips blue. My dad won’t appear in my dreams very much, and I’ll miss him.
     Mom closes her eyes and tugs nervously at the streak of white in her auburn hair. She insists on identifying his body alone, and I let her. For now, I am glad, but I will be angry later when I can’t be sure if the bloated, bruised, waterlogged version in my head is more or less grotesque than the real thing. I will grow jealous of her for getting to see him, for the visual proof that convinces even the most stubborn parts of her brain that he is dead.
     It will all come later. Things take time.
 
 
 
Before I get a chance to email my boss and ask for Monday sub coverage, he emails me and copies the entire faculty.
 
Teddy,
We heard. We are all SO sorry for your loss. Take some time to be with your mother. Hank and Wendy have volunteered to cover your classes in the interim. Please let me know when the wake will be held. The school would love to send a spray to Brown’s, and I’m sure members of the community would attend.
Deepest sympathies,
Rick
Principal, Upper School

Other faculty members jump on the thread. Lots of caps
lock. Many sad faces.
 
Teddy, hon! I saw the news. SO SORRY! xoxo Bea

Ted, more bad news for your poor family?! Hang in there, babe. —Wendy

Theodora, I know we don’t know each other very well, but I want you to know that my uncle committed suicide. My prayers are with you and your mother. Let me know if I can help in any way.
Love, Fred (from upstairs)
 
I send one email to the group before I mute notifications:
 
My entire St. Aug’s family, I so appreciate your well wishes, and I can’t thank you enough for stepping up to cover my classes. However, we will not be having any public services, and I plan to return to work on Tuesday. I thank you in advance for your discretion with the students over the next
few weeks.
Best, Teddy
 
 
 
Before Angie disappeared, she was very focused on the things she didn’t have: a boyfriend, a car, a beach body, good hair, good skin, a tongue piercing, a full sleeve tattoo, a reliable pot dealer, a chance at a half-decent college, a date for senior prom, a sense of direction. I would sit at the end of her bed and paint her toenails a shade of green or red dark enough to look black, and she would list them off.
     When she was gone, it felt like we were drowning in her things: Angie’s CD collection, Angie’s ripped jeans, ripped sweaters, ripped everything. Angie’s sketchbooks, Angie’s textbooks, Angie’s yearbooks, signed with inside jokes that Mom tried to crack like spy code.
     I inherited none of it. I couldn’t wear her clothes or her earrings or her perfume. I tried once, with the perfume—a saccharine vanilla scent that I had scored rightfully, as a hand-me-down from herself—and it made Mom so upset that she wouldn’t speak to me until I showered.
     The only thing I got was Angie’s dog, an Irish wolfhound—only a puppy then, all legs and wiry, slate-gray fur—that year’s birthday present from my dad, purchased without Mom’s knowledge, a month before Angie went missing. For Angie to take with her when she moved out and started her classes at the community college. A security system.
     Wolf was small then. Now he is large and blind. Ten is old for an Irish wolfhound.
     “Come on, Wolf,” I say, hauling his gaunt frame into the trunk of my car for another doctor’s appointment, only hours after the bridge. “Help me help you, buddy.”
     “Does he need more pillows?” Mom asks.
     I look at Wolfie. He lies on his side, long limbs extended toward the back of the car. He is surrounded by pillows.
     “Come on,” I say. “The rest are boxed up.”
     I regret it instantly, bringing up the move, but Mom doesn’t notice. She kisses Wolfie’s wet nose and shuts the trunk. Since she let her license expire a few years ago, she only leaves the house for doctor’s appointments—Wolf ’s and her own.
     Mom hated Wolfie when he first arrived. She had a strict no-animals policy, and his habits of barking when the house creaked in the middle of the night and peeing on her curtains didn’t endear him to her. But Angie trained him quickly and well in a few short weeks. He learned commands and he stuck by her side day and night, sleeping on top of her head when he was small.
     Sometimes, I think Wolfie understood that she wasn’t coming back before the rest of us did. The one person he would let touch him was me. He was bereft.
     Only when the cops announced that they were giving up did Mom express an interest in Wolfie. She didn’t want to be his primary caregiver. She just wanted to make sure that he was well cared-for since Angie loved...

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Verlag
Soho Crime
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1641294876
ISBN 13 
9781641294874
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
384
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Buchbär
info@buchbaer.de

Weberstr. 67
Osnabrück
49084
Deutschland

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