From the New York Times bestselling author of Ordinary People comes a gripping suspense novel that explores fragile family dynamics in the aftermath of tragedy in a combination of page-turning mystery and intimate, emotionally charged family drama.

In the northern Michigan community of Blessed, Sherriff Hugh Dewitt is still grieving the death of his infant son who died of SIDS just a few years earlier. As he continues to obsess over the past, he begins to endanger the future of his beloved wife and daughter.

Just up the road from DeWitt in a luxurious summer cottage, Paige Norbois is grieving a lost love of her own. Married to a stern and unresponsive man, Paige wills herself to stay in the marriage and sacrifice her personal feelings for the sake of her children's stability. But when Paige, her husband, and their four children are brutally murdered in their own home, all of the dreams of stability in Blessed are destroyed.

Deeply moved by the horrific murder scene, Sherriff DeWitt is determined to find the answers to a string of urgent questions: When did the murders occur? Why did nobody miss the family earlier? Who had the motive to kill?the man whom with Paige was having an affair or the business partner stealing from her husband's publishing firm? Who was the primary victim of the slaughter? And, above all, what sort of trauma could fuel a killer's capacity to commit such hate-driven violence?

With her own untarnished eye and finely nuanced prose, Judith Guest delivers a novel that transcends genre and showcases her remarkable literary talent.