Under the Harrow

5 of 8
Under the Harrow
240 pages; Penguin Books
When London native Nora finds her only sister, Rachel, stabbed to death in her country home—and her sister's dog hanging from the banister—she is traumatized almost into paralysis. "I would have thought it would feel like a dream, but it doesn't. The man driving next to me is real, the landscape outside the window is real, and the wet sticking my shirt to my stomach." As Nora searches for the killer, she learns that her sister, who was her closest friend, was keeping some pretty distressing secrets, some of them about her own life. The mystery deepens when investigators learn that Rachel suffered (but survived) a similar attack by a stranger when she was 17.  Flynn Berry's debut novel imbues the classic murder mystery with rich emotional depth, describing Nora's anguish and grief so acutely that the reader feels the emotional impact of her loss as deeply as the desire to know who did it. The result is an investigation not just of the crime but also of the fierce, complicated love that exists between sisters.
— Domenica Ruta