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Summary
Summary
"A thriller for fans of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl ...[with] a striking, original voice all Berry's own." -- The New York Times Book Review
The riveting, Edgar Award-winning first novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Northern Spy and A Double Life
When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station, or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel's familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder.
Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can't return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can't trust them to find her sister's killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As Nora's fear turns to obsession, she becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers.
A riveting psychological thriller and a haunting exploration of the fierce love between two sisters, the distortions of grief, and the terrifying power of the past, Under the Harrow marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.
Named one of the "10 Best Mystery Books and Thrillers of the Year" by The Washington Post
Named one of the best books of the year by The Atlantic
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of Berry's tight debut, Nora, the book's initially guarded narrator, travels from her home in London to her sister Rachel's house in the Yorkshire countryside, where she finds Rachel dead, stabbed multiple times. Devastated, Nora proceeds to insinuate herself into the ensuing police investigation, while starting her own among the people Rachel came in contact with. Determined to the point of obsession, she manages to offend nearly everyone. Old secrets come to light in all of their ugliness, including an attack on Rachel as a teen (and the sisters' ongoing efforts to find the perpetrator). Nora struggles to resolve her love for her sister with the resentment that's always simmered below the surface. Readers will enjoy trying to ferret out the clues along with Nora, but those who think they have the mystery figured out may be caught off guard by the surprising, if a bit abrupt, ending. Five-city author tour. Agent: Emily Forland, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
After she discovers her sister brutally murdered, a woman's search for answers becomes as much about understanding the sibling she's lost as finding the killer.On any other visit to her older sister Rachel's Oxfordshire home, Londoner Nora Lawrence would look forward to leisurely meals and long talks enhanced by wine. But when she arrives this time, Nora finds Rachel stabbed 11 times and her German shepherd, Fenno, hanging dead from an upstairs banister. Berry, in her keenly wrought debut, never lets the reader forget the weight of Rachel's death, the heft of which grinds down Nora's every step as she lumbers from the police station to the local inn, where she decides to stay in order to be close to the investigation. Unlike murder cases on television, where evidence and suspects seem to abound, Rachel's case flounders from the start: there's no murder weapon, the village isn't overrun with nefarious characters, and the more Nora discovers about her sister, the less she feels like she knows her. Convinced that the murder might be linked to a brutal assault Rachel suffered at age 17 by an unknown assailant, Nora struggles to reconcile the fierce love she feels for her sister with the creeping feeling of inadequacy that always hovered on the periphery of their tightly knit but often fraught relationship. Berry accomplishes the rare feat of making the victim come alive on the page without ever sacrificing the deep, all-encompassing loss felt by those left behind. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Nora arrives at her sister Rachel's village farmhouse in the English countryside for a weekend visit and finds Rachel and her dog viciously murdered. Even as she supplies DI Moretti details on Rachel's routines and ex-boyfriends, Nora is flooded with shock and the fear that her sister's past has resurfaced. When they were teens, Rachel was brutally beaten while walking home from a party. When the police failed to find Rachel's attacker, she and Nora scoured reports of attacks on women for years, hoping to find the clue that would solve the case. Eventually, they stopped their hunt, and Nora can't shake the feeling that Rachel would still be alive if they'd kept looking. Rachel vows to remain in the village until her sister's murderer is found and is led by grief and guilt into a dangerous obsession with the case. Nora's voice bounces between grief, desperation, and rage, and this unpredictability creates a Hitchcockian tension. A moody psychological thriller that explores sisterhood's complex mix of love and resentment.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THE DEVILS OF CARDONA, by Matthew Carr. (Riverhead, $27.) Carr's enthralling and exciting fiction debut, set in late-16th-century Aragon, highlights the tensions between the region's Christians and its Muslim converts. GOOD AS GONE, by Amy Gentry. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $23.) In this first novel, the apparent reappearance of a kidnapped young woman after eight years raises questions about identity. ALL THE MISSING GIRLS, by Megan Miranda. (Simon & Schuster, $25.) A woman returns to her hometown in search of a friend who has disappeared in Miranda's intriguingly narrated thriller. UNDER THE HARROW, by Flynn Berry. (Penguin, paper, $16.) A woman seeks her sister's brutal murderer in Berry's compulsively readable novel of psychological suspense, narrated in a striking, original voice. YOU WILL KNOW ME, by Megan Abbott. (Little, Brown, $26.) Abbott's skillfully written murder mystery centers on an ambitious teenage gymnast and her family. THE DEATH OF REX NHONGO, by C.B. George. (Lee Boudreaux/Little, Brown, $26.) A gifted storyteller's first novel explores intricately intertwined lives in contemporary Zimbabwe. DANCING WITH THE TIGER, by Lili Wright. (Marian Wood/Putnam, $26.) A struggle to acquire Montezuma's death mask animates this energetic debut, a sprawling literary thriller. THE ANGEL: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel, by Uri Bar-Joseph. (Harper/HarperCollins, $29.99.) A trenchant account of the career of a master spy. MISSING, PRESUMED, by Susie Steiner. (Random House, $27.) Steiner's smart, stylish detective novel features a convincing ensemble cast. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books.
Library Journal Review
Nora leaves London one Friday afternoon to visit her sister Rachel for a relaxing weekend in the country. She expects to find Rachel in the kitchen making dinner. Instead she discovers her sister's body lying in a pool of blood with her dead dog nearby. As Nora plans the funeral and deals with final details, she realizes she's unable to move on with her own life. She's particularly distraught by a case of an unsolved assault suffered by Rachel at age 17. Investigating on her own, Nora finds out that she knows less about her sibling than she once thought. Though not all readers will be able to stomach the initial gruesome scenes involving Rachel's dog, those who stick around will be rewarded with a riveting, complex suspense novel thick with atmosphere and long-held secrets. VERDICT Berry's fiction debut is a dark, twisty, and deeply disturbing thriller that makes for an absorbing summer read. Readers will look forward to the next novel by this promising new author.-Liz Kirchhoff, Barrington Area Lib., IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.