Two Days Gone

by Randall Silvis Narrated by Graham Winton

Overview

The perfect family. The perfect house. The perfect life. All gone now. What could cause a man, when all the stars of fortune are shining upon him, to suddenly snap and destroy everything he has built? This is the question that haunts Sergeant Ryan DeMarco after the wife and children of beloved college professor and bestselling author Thomas Huston are found slaughtered in their home. Huston himself has disappeared and so is immediately cast as the prime suspect. DeMarco knows-or thinks he knows-that Huston couldn't have been capable of murdering his family. But if Huston is innocent, why is he on the run? And does the half-finished manuscript he left behind contain clues to the mystery of his family's killer? A masterful new novel by acclaimed author Randall Silvis, Two Days Gone is a taut, suspenseful story that will break your heart as much as it will haunt your dreams.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

Silvis tells his parallel stories—of Huston's mad wanderings in the forest and DeMarco's reluctant dragnet—with finely tuned sensitivity.

Publishers Weekly

10/24/2016
In this skillfully written thriller set in western Pennsylvania from Silvis (On Night’s Shore), Thomas Huston, a respected Shenango College professor and acclaimed author, appears to have murdered his wife, Claire, and their three children in their beds. Huston recently lost both his parents. Did he snap? Sgt. Ryan DeMarco, a state policeman and a friend of the suspect—who’s coping with his own personal tragedy—takes the case hoping to find some answers. On the Shenango campus, he meets a student, Nathan Briessen, who steers him to information about a novel that Huston was researching. Literary references to Nabokov and Poe, some meta-moments about characters and writers, fiction and truth, as well as DeMarco’s complicated relationship with his wife, Laraine, add seasoning to the plot. By alternating between Huston and DeMarco’s narratives, Silvis nimbly puzzles out what took place on the night of the multiple murders, and what it means to go on after a loss. Agent: Sandy Lu, L. Perkins Agency. (Jan.)

From the Publisher

"Beneath the momentum of the investigation lies a pervasive sadness that will stick with you long after you've turned the last page." — Kirkus Reviews

"[a] chilly suspense novel." — The New York Times Sunday Book Review

"...a suspenseful, literary thriller that will resonate with readers long after the book is finished. A terrific choice for Dennis Lehane fans." — Library Journal, Starred Review

"An absolute gem of literary suspense, pitting ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and told in a smooth, assured, and often haunting voice, Two Days Gone is a terrific read." — Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Wish Me Dead

"…impressive novel…an intriguing thriller." — Booklist

"…[a] skillfully written thriller." — Publishers Weekly

"A gripping new literary thriller….The fact that this book will be marketed as genre fiction is misleading; it’s more than that. It’s literature posing as a mystery, like works from Attica Locke or Louise Penny. Two Days Gone will be one of the best reading investments you make this year." — BookPage TOP PICK IN MYSTERY January 2017, and Top 10 Notable Book for its January 2017 reading list

"…this novel [will] linger in readers’ minds well after Two Days Gone." — Shelf Awareness

"Two Days Gone is a quiet, intense, suspenseful mystery about a man who has lost everything. Rich with descriptions and atmosphere….Two Days Gone is relentless in its suspense, and the final twists in the novel are sure to not disappoint." — Foreword Review

"Randall Silvis' Two Days Gone is a smart, twisting, vividly written thriller anchored by two deeply flawed yet fascinating protagonists. Yes, the novel provides cat-and-mouse suspense as a horrific murder in a college town is investigated, but it's also a deeply rewarding story about friendship, family, fame, and the complicated relationship between readers and writers. Anyone who wants to dismiss thrillers as mere genre fluff should read Two Days Gone." — David Bell, author of Since She Went Away

Library Journal

★ 12/01/2016
This novel revolves around two men with nothing in common: one a famous writer and professor, the other a disheartened detective. Yet, a bond is formed between the pair that will be stretched to the breaking point. Sgt. Ryan DeMarco arrives at a horrific crime scene—Thomas Huston's butchered wife and children. All signs point to the disappeared professor as the murderer. DeMarco cannot accept that his friend would do something so evil, not when he seemed to love his family so much. DeMarco is a wonderfully flawed protagonist, barely keeping his head above water after losing his son years earlier. This loss has caused his life to spiral out of control, which is why he finds it so unbelievable that Huston snapped and threw all he had away. So what happened that night, and why is Huston on the run? As DeMarco traces the suspect's steps and delves into a half-finished manuscript Huston left behind, he starts to uncover a tangled web of lies, deceit, and wrongdoing. VERDICT Silvis (The Boy Who Shoots Crows) has given us a suspenseful, literary thriller that will resonate with readers long after the book is finished. A terrific choice for Dennis Lehane fans. [See Prepub Alert, 7/18/16.]—Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD

Kirkus Reviews

2016-09-27
A Pennsylvania police officer digs deep, then still deeper, into the mystery of an inexplicably slaughtered family.Professor Thomas Huston seemed to have it all: a successful career as a novelist, a position as a popular teacher at Shenango College, a loving wife, and three children too young to have grown away from him yet. So why on earth would he have taken a razor to their throats before disappearing into the night? Why, even if he felt compelled to end their lives, would he have varied his technique for his baby son, stabbing him in the heart instead? And why, if he’s so determined to run away, does he keep hovering around the town, telephoning his friends only to read them poems by Edgar Allan Poe? Sgt. Ryan DeMarco counts himself as one of those friends, but he finds Huston’s behavior, whether or not he’s as guilty as he looks, as inexplicable as everyone else. Unlike everyone else, however, DeMarco can’t let go of these agonizing riddles. Still mourning the death of his own baby son in a car crash, he feels an uncanny kinship to Huston, an intimacy that deepens when he retraces the writer’s steps to Whispers, the strip club where Huston had cultivated owner Bonnie Harris and dancer Danni Reynolds as models for Annabel, the heroine of his latest novel. As DeMarco, who’s a lot better at butting heads with station commander Sgt. Kyle Bowen, the supervisor he used to supervise before his demotion, than at detective work, struggles to make sense of Huston’s behavior, Silvis (The Boy Who Shoots Crows, 2011, etc.) intercuts his inquiries with glimpses into Huston’s tantalizingly underspecified memories of the fatal night until the two men finally collide in the first of several memorable lurches into resolution. Beneath the momentum of the investigation lies a pervasive sadness that will stick with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170843169
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	01/10/2017
Series:	Ryan DeMarco Mysteries , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged

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