By: Jenny Milchman
Arles Shepherd Thriller #1
Narrator: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
ISBN: 9781662518423
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date: 10/01/2024
Format: Other
My Rating: 4 Stars
A psychologist haunted by childhood trauma must unearth all that is buried in her past in this twisting, lyrical novel of suspense by Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author Jenny Milchman.
Psychologist Arles Shepherd treats troubled children, struggling with each case to recover from her own traumatic past, much of which she’s lost to the shadows of memory. Having just set up a new kind of treatment center in the remote Adirondack wilderness, Arles longs to heal one patient in particular: a ten-year-old boy who has never spoken a word—or so his mother, Louise, believes.
Hundreds of miles away, Cass Monroe is living a parent’s worst nightmare. His twelve-year-old daughter has vanished on her way home from school. With no clues, no witnesses, and no trail, the police are at a dead end. Fighting a heart that was already ailing, and struggling to keep both his marriage and himself alive, Cass turns to a pair of true-crime podcasters for help.
Arles, Louise, and Cass will soon find their lives entangled in ways none of them could have anticipated. And when the collision occurs, a quarter-century-old secret will be forced out of hiding. Because nothing screams louder than silence.
Praise
"Milchman is the Swiss Army knife of thriller writers." —Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Reacher novels
From the Publisher
For most of us, memories of childhood are hazy like a faded Polaroid photo. I don’t remember how old I was when I rolled through poison ivy in my grandparents’ backyard, but I remember the intense itch of the rash and the smell of the tomato soup bath that followed. But for psychologist Arles Shepherd, the protagonist of award-winning author Jenny Milchman’s series starter The Usual Silence, a literal faded Polaroid may hold the key to her past.
There’s so much Arles can’t remember about her own childhood. It’s part of what drew her to her profession of caring for troubled children. Maybe it wasn’t a great idea to set up a treatment center on her childhood estate in the remote Adirondack wilderness, but something about this feels, dare she say, predestined?
Meanwhile, Cass Monroe is desperately searching for his missing twelve-year-old daughter. The case has nothing to do with Arles. It has nothing to do with any of Arles’s patients. And yet…
It’s a race against time not only to find a child but also to uncover the facts about Arles’s past and the secret about her patients’ traumas, as these interconnected mysteries may hold the answers. With the most pressing truths, Arles may finally develop the full picture that’s been developing before her eyes all these years.
—Jessica Tribble Wells, Editor
About the Author
Jenny Milchman is the Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning and USA Today bestselling author of the psychological thrillers Cover of Snow, Ruin Falls, As Night Falls, Wicked River, and The Second Mother. Her work has received praise from media ranging from the New York Times to the San Francisco Journal of Books; earned spots on Top 10 lists from Suspense Magazine to the Strand Magazine; made Best Of lists from PopSugar to PureWow; and garnered starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and Shelf Awareness, in addition to numerous other mentions. Before turning to fiction, Jenny earned a graduate degree in clinical psychology and practiced at a rural community mental health center for more than a decade.
She lives in the Catskill Mountains with her family. For more information, visit www.jennymilchman.com.
