Summary
In his award winning novel, The Long and Faraway Gone, Lou Berney takes readers on a fast-paced journey to solve two tragic mysteries from one fatal summer.
The summer of 1986 started as an average season in Oklahoma City where teenagers worked menial jobs, snuck into swimming pools and smuggled beer from their parents. This all quickly came to an end when two fatal tragedies shook the city to its core.
In this mystery thriller, twenty five years have passed since the devastating tragedies that rattled the citizens of Oklahoma City. Both Wyatt and Julianna remain haunted by the events of that fateful summer and are devoted to unravelling the mysteries of both tragedies.
For Wyatt, the sole survivor of a massacre that killed six of his fellow movie-theater employees, that summer left unhealable scars and unanswered questions. After becoming a private investigator, Wyatt finds his way back to Oklahoma where his fixation on lost love and grief force him to revisit the case of who murdered his high school friends.
Similarly, Julianna is tortured by the memory of her beautiful older sister disappearing from the annual state fair. Her fixation with her sister’s drug abuse and racy lifestyle angers Julianna into believing that her catastrophic fate was inevitable. When new information and an old suspect resurface, Julianna is willing to risk it all to decipher the true events of that night.
Lou Berney flawlessly triggers suspense and intrigue through the alternating narratives of Wyatt and Julianna. This melancholic and intense thriller allows readers to piece together the puzzle of each mystery. Those that relish in the mysteries of Louise Penny and Michael Connelly will enjoy following Wyatt and Julianna on their quest to answer life-consuming mysteries from their childhood.