When two girls, aged nine and ten are abducted and killed in Wind Gap, Missouri, Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to investigate and report on the crimes. Camille, self-described 'white trash from old money', is the daughter of one of the richest families in town. Long-haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's Victorian mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half-sister she barely knows, a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town and surrounds herself with a group of vampish teenage girls. As Camille struggles to remain detached from the evidence, her relationship with her neurotic, hypochondriac mother threatens to topple her hard-won mental stability. Working alongside the police chief and a special agent from out of town, Camille tries to uncover the mystery of who killed these little girls and why. But there are deeper psychological puzzles: Why does Camille identify so strongly with the dead girls? And how is this connected to the death of another sister years earlier?

ギリアン・フラインが描くのは、女性の加害性と連鎖する悲劇の解剖学です。旧家の令嬢でありながら自らを屑と称する主人公。皮膚に刻まれた言葉は絶望の象徴であり、読者の心に生々しい傷を残します。母娘の密室的な関係に潜む毒。魂の叫びを、冷徹かつ詩的な筆致で鮮烈に描きます。 南部ゴシックの湿気と鋭利な心理描写は圧巻です。閉塞的な町に満ちる残酷さは、どんなホラーより恐ろしく耽美的です。犯人探しの先にある、人間の本質的な孤独と救済。読後、あなたの肌にも物語が刻まれるような、強烈な中毒性を持つ傑作ミステリーです。