Sand Williams is reluctant when she agrees to watch over
her neighbor Norah's son, Timothy, and stepdaughter,
Dahlia, while Norah and her husband go out of town. Sand's
biggest worry is that they'll have big parties. What she
doesn't expect is to find Dahlia brutally murdered.
It's a dark stormy night when Sand goes to check on Dahlia
and Timothy. Timothy is sleeping on the sofa and doesn't
know Dahlia's whereabouts. After searching the house, they
find her cold, lifeless body marked with wounds and tucked
into her own bed without a spot of blood on her. As a
matter of fact, there's no blood anywhere, yet the window
to her bedroom is broken indicating a struggle.
With no witnesses and no murder weapon, the police are
completely baffled. As the investigation gets underway,
fingers point every which way, but they all lead to
nowhere. Could it have been a drifter or a past boyfriend?
Will the autopsy reveal rape? As much of a fundamentalist
as Norah is, that's all she can think about. Since Sand
found the body, she's considered a suspect. And people
really begin to talk when Timothy is questioned and takes a
polygraph test.
Inspired by true events, DAHLIA'S GONE by Katie
Estill is a great murder mystery that keeps you
guessing up to the end. It's also a good character study
about relationships between family, friends and co-workers.
Worldly, educated and well-traveled, Sand Williams returns
to her hometown along the beautiful Seven Point River for
some much needed respite. She shares nothing in common with
her fundamentalist and judgmental neighbor, Norah Everston,
who calls upon Sand to look after her son and step-daughter
while she and her husband are out of town. Sand checks in
on the two teenagers to find that the Everston's eighteen-
year-old daughter has been brutally murdered.
Separated by conflicting ideologies, the lives of Sand and
Norah are soon intertwined as they struggle to cope with
the overwhelming forces of tragedy and angst. Patti
Callahan, the sole female in the sheriff's department, is
also deeply affected by Dahlia's murder. As the first
deputy to arrive on the scene, Patti joins Sand and Norah
in the whirlwind of emotional and personal exploration
spurned by these tragic events.
As head of the Howell County Stop Violence Against
Women Task Force, Katie Estill crossed paths with
the father of the murdered girl whose story inspired
DAHLIA'S GONE. It is from this brief encounter that
the idea of the novel was born. Capturing the awe-inspiring
beauty of a river landscape in the Ozarks and the
intricacies of small town southern life, Estill's latest
novel is an intimate portrait of a community forever
changed by disaster.
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