Mouth to Mouth

Amazon editorial review People who live with lies can be killed by the truth. Sheep farmer Eileen knows much of the worst about her husband Scott and has constructed her life to avoid thinking about it. The wedding of her rebellious daughter Moreen is just another small portion of hell--Randy is a smalltown tough with a nasty temper. Then long-lost nephew Neal turns up at the wedding and shortly afterwards people start to die and all the skill at evasion which Eileen has taught herself down the years will not save her.

Kimball's rural America is a nightmare of prejudice, loan-sharking, hideous accidents, ill- advised sexual encounters and gratuitously violent death. His laconic Maine countryfolk keep quiet because they all have secrets; this is a thriller which gains much of its power from the way no-one tells anyone anything. From the moment he appears in a barn to face down Randy and his psychotic friend Gator, Neal combines sexual magnetism, a terrifying lack of fear and a capacity for making himself look good at other people's expense. Mouth to Mouth is an effective novel of suspense because Kimball makes us care about the people to whom terrible things happen, especially the flawed but strong Eileen. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

also by Michael Kimball in our collection:

• Undone