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Nameless Acts of Cruelty

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Decades after the loss of his younger sister, a man haunted by horrific memories returns to the sleepy English village where she died

Jeremy Horton is a man denying his past, haunted by a dysfunctional childhood full of dark secrets—including the suspicious death of his younger sister.

Married to lawyer Sarah and with children of his own, Jeremy keeps his eyes firmly focused on the present, never daring to glance in the rear-view mirror for fear of what he might see there. But when a chance encounter awakens the memories he's fought so hard to suppress, and the death of his estranged mother takes Jeremy back to his sleepy hometown and the scene of the family tragedy, he determines to finally uncover the truth behind his sister's death.

Villages hold long memories, and Jeremy's presence quickly becomes an unwelcome reminder of nameless cruelties and shameful secrets. The more he learns, the more the stories from his past take on a sinister significance, leading him to question his own innocence. Meanwhile, someone desperately wants him gone, and their efforts to drive him out escalate as Jeremy's anxiety spirals out of control. Do they fear him for what he knows—or for what he's done?

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 27, 2022
      At the start of this busy psychological thriller from Cameron (Only Truth), architect Jeremy Horton is flying home to London with his lawyer wife and their two children when he sees from the plane window a tiny figure running through a field. The sight unnerves him. Soon, disturbing thoughts surface about his Uncle Ian’s house in a village where Jeremy and his younger sister, Emily, spent their summer holidays, along with repressed memories of Emily’s death there when Jeremy was 11. A short time later, Jeremy’s mother, a bundle of suppressed rage, dies. To his surprise, she has left him the house that once belonged to Uncle Ian. Jeremy and his family travel to the village to clear the place out before selling it. His anxiety escalates when he’s met with open hostility from the locals. What do they know about that long ago summer? How can he find out what happened to Emily? And does he really want to know? The plot simmers for a long time before finally boiling over with dramatic revelations. Others have done a better job with the theme of overcoming childhood trauma. Agent: Jane Gregory, David Higham Assoc. (U.K.).

    • Booklist

      August 1, 2022
      As a kid, Jeremy Horton craved the arrival of summer, when he and his younger sister, Emily, were packed off to Uncle Ian's English country house. It was an idyllic escape from his mother, whose casual cruelty toward Jeremy demonstrated her preference for his sister. Then, the summer Jeremy was 11, Emily drowned on his watch. After he's banished to boarding school, Jeremy's only recollections of that day are increasingly disturbing flashbacks. Now father to his own son and daughter, Jeremy becomes convinced that returning to the village to learn the truth about Emily's death will resolve his haunting guilt. Jeremy's return is far from cathartic: the locals have pointed suspicions, and without memories of his own, Jeremy has nothing to dispute the swirling whispers that he drowned his sister in a fit of jealousy. Certain that his childhood friend, Ben, is hiding something, Jeremy prods Ben's family secrets and awakens new threats. Slow-burning tension fueled by the paranoid haze surrounding Emily's death, paired with the questionable reliability of Jeremy's narration, evokes a slightly saner Jack Torrance from The Shining. Disturbing but compelling reading.

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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