Teenage boys--Fiction; Problem youth--Fiction; Blood accusation--Fiction; Mormons--Fiction; Murder--Fiction
When Rudd Theurer, a high schooler whose father has committed suicide, embarks on a school project, he stumbles upon a series of newspaper articles from the early 20th century chronicling a vicious murder committed by a grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young. Delving deeply into the Mormon ritual of blood sacrifice that seems the basis of the murder, Rudd, along with his newly discovered half-brother, Lael, becomes swept up in the psychological and atavistic effects of a century old ritual killing.
As the past and the present become an increasingly tangled knot, Rudd is found at the scene of a multiple murder at a remote campsite, severly injured and comatose, but alive. When, months later, he regains consciousness, Lyndi, the daughter of the victims, tries to help him recover his memory and, together, they find a strength unique to survivors of terrible tragedies. But Rudd, desperate to protect Lyndi and unable to let the past be still, tries to manipulate their Mormon wedding ceremony to trick the priests (and God) by giving himself and Lyndi new secret names-names that match the killer and the victim in the one hundred-year-old murder. The nightmare has just begun . . . [from publisher's web site]
A Time Out New York Best of 2006 Choice
Finalist for a 2006 International Horror Guild Award, Best Novel Category
Finalist for a 2006 Edgar Award, Best Paperback Original Category
Finalist for the 2006 Utah Book Award
Finalist for the 2007 Paterson Fiction Prize
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