Private investigator Charlie Parker is recruited by former senator Jack Mercier to investigate the death of Grace Peltier, the daughter of Curtis Peltier, a former business partner. Although the police believe Grace's death was suicide, Parker finds evidence that she was murdered. At about the same time a mass grave is discovered containing what may be the moral remains of the Aroostook Baptists, a religious community which mysteriously disappeared some 30 years ago. At the time of her death Grace was writing a thesis about the disappearance of the Aroostook Baptists and investigating a shadowy pseudo-religious organisation called the Fellowship. Is there a link between Grace's death and a 30-year-old crime? To find the answer Parker must face the sinister and ruthless killer who calls himself Elias Pudd, a man with a fondness for spiders and an utter contempt for humanity.
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The review of this Book prepared by Stephen Coombs
Atria, Sep 2002, 25.00, 376 pp.
ISBN: 0743453344
Graduate student Grace Peltier is working on her Ph.D. thesis centering on religious zealots, the Aroostook Baptists, and their unexplained disappearance in 1963. Her research takes Grace to Carter Paragon, founder of the Fellowship. Not long after meeting Carter, Grace is found dead in her car parked on an isolated dirt road. All evidence points towards a suicide.
Grace's father Curtis rejects the notion that his daughter killed herself. He hires New England private investigator Charlie Parker to make inquiries and find out what really happened to Grace including as Curtis expects the identity of her killer. While Charlie works on the case, a mass grave containing the remains of the Aroostook Baptists has been discovered that ties back to Carter and his Fellowship. Charlie notices a link between the Aroostook, the Foundation, and his client's daughter that leads to malevolent beings informing him to drop the case or die.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
