Ghosts, United States 

He takes us back to 1938. He draws us into an idyllic landscape, a sunlit world that evokes the halcyon days of all our childhoods -a world destined little by little to be overtaken by the darkness that lies beneath its surface. It is summertime. At the Bible camp called Friend - Indeed, nestled among tall pines on the shores of Moonbow Lake, the teenage boys of the cabin called Jeremiah and their glamorous counselor, Reece Hartsig - in every way a star, a hero to the camp for his athletic, even his reputation as a heartbreaker - eagerly await the arrival of a new camper. He is to replace the homesick bedwetter whose presence for the first two weeks of the season has cost the cabin its traditional place of honor as best of the best - holder of more trophies, winner of more prizes (mostly Bibles) than any other. But instead of the all-round camper and great ballplayer they have hoped for, what they get is Leo Joaquim, a mysterious orphan who is a prodigy on the violin, who collects spiders, who throws a ball like a girl... whose very presence -awkward, timid, smart at the wrong times- upsets the time-honored rhythms of camp life.

What follows is Tyron in top form. We are held spellbound in the shadow of a blossoming terror as the little society of boys transforms itself into a cabal against the one who disappointed them... as their prey is reawakened to the horrendous boyhood secret he has blocked out of his consciousness… and as the novel rushes to its stunning climax, in which Leo becomes the unwitting catalyst and prime actor in an explosion of evil.