Sleeping giants A novel

The cold, pounding ocean, treacherous with undercurrents, mauls the Oregon coast and sets the highs and lows of this magnetizing tale of loss and discovery. Ex-cop and widower Larry Palmer is lonely and bored in tiny, storm-battered Eagle Cove. When adoptee Amanda Dufresne arrives, looking for traces of the brother she has just learned about, Larry is glad to help her search for details about Dennis' time at Brightwood, a "home for troubled boys," and his tragic drowning. The story rolls back 20 years. A new custodian at Brightwood, a survivor of a similar institution, slowly earns the trust of cautious Dennis, until a new director arrives, practicing a new and harrowing form of therapy. Holding time is meant to break children down, and Martha King takes it to horrific extremes. The appalling Brightwood scenes run in sharp contrast to Amanda's sensitive work as a zookeeper caring for Molly, a rescued polar bear. The more questions Amanda and Larry ask about King, the more escalating dangers they face. In her fourth novel, acclaimed Denfeld (The Butterfly Girl, 2019) draws on her experiences as a social justice investigator and foster mother to astutely portray neurodivergent characters in a transfixingly atmospheric, brilliantly plotted, heart-seizing drama of cruelty and trauma, cover-ups and murder, and the depthless mysteries of pain and love.

The mysterious drowning of nine-year-old Dennis Owens haunts the remote Oregon coastal community of Eagle Cove two decades later in Denfeld's enthralling follow-up to The Butterfly Girl. After Amanda Dufresne seeks out information about her birth parents, the lonely young zookeeper learns she had a brother, Dennis, who was taken from their alcoholic mother and put into Brightwood, a residential treatment center for boys with behavioral issues, when he was four years old. Five years later, he drowned in the nearby Pacific Ocean, possibly after escaping to the beach from Brightwood. Shocked, Amanda visits a roadside memorial overlooking the spot where Dennis was last seen 20 years earlier and meets widower Larry Palmer, a retired police officer looking for a purpose. Together, Amanda and Larry dig into Brightwood's troubled history, learning along the way that most local authorities and community members would prefer tales of the treatment center and its multiple missing boys to stay forgotten. Eventually, Amanda and Larry learn that a regime change at Brightwood just before Dennis was admitted led to the appointment of new director Martha King, who believed her cruel treatments benefitted the children even as she dealt them irreparable harm. Though the subject matter is often wrenching, Denfeld wrings considerable sweetness from the relationship between Amanda and Larry, and never allows the narrative to wallow in Dickensian misery. The result is a heartfelt mystery that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell. (Mar.)