
And he would tell her that the palm in the opening line, the one Carey mistook for a hand instead of the tree it was, “is forever out of reach.”
She always heard his declaration as defeatist, as if Danny had given up on whatever dreams swirled in his mind. It crushed her. Now, his observation strikes her as realistic, mature, even liberating. Danny wasn’t saying people couldn’t have what they yearned for. He was saying that the yearning would never cease, no matter what was gained or gathered. It was enough to embrace the yearning, then let it go. She wishes she’d listened harder.
Danny has a similar obsession with dragonflies and is known to stand and watch them for hours, seeming to see then when others can’t. He wonders, “whether any of the people…actually know what the dragonfly is about, how its flitting beauty, wings aglint in sun, masks the bloodless killer within. Probably not.”
In a book full of secrets and masked motives, even the victim has a side that is underestimated.
Bleak Harbor is a thriller that increases the pressure with every chapter; like pealing layers of an onion it slowly exposes the complex crime--and possible complicity of each character--with every page turn.
Gruley, Bryan. Bleak Harbor, Thomas & Mercer, December 1, 2018.
ISBN 978-1503904682
A copy of Bleak Harbor was provided to The Thirty Year Itch by the publisher. No compensation was provided for this review.
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