Synopses & Reviews
It is early 1950s Idaho and the season of the chinook — a warm February breeze that blows across the flat cookie-sheet plains from the wrong direction. It brings arid earth and hard times, marking the end of childhood for thirteen-year-old Jake Weber and the beginning of trouble for his family. When Jake defies his father's order to stay away from the river, an innocent swim ends with something far beyond anyone's expectations: Jake witnesses the brutal murder of "that woman Sugar Babe" by Harold Endicott, who owns the mortgage on the Weber farm.
Jake is forbidden to speak of it and name the one responsible, even as the woman's lover, a black man, is falsely accused.
Over the course of a long hot summer, this crime and its devastating aftermath forever alter Jake's vision of his parents and his world, teaching him the true source of danger. And the true power of forbidden knowledge.
About the Author
Tom Spanbauer is a critically acclaimed author and the founder of Dangerous Writing. His three published novels, Faraway Places, The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon, In The City Of Shy Hunters, and the soon to be published Now Is the Hour, are notable for their combination of a fresh and lyrical prose style with solid storytelling. Tom lives, writes, and teaches in Portland Oregon.