Mystery & Crime

The Tarnished Eye

Name: The Tarnished Eye
Author: Judith Guest
ISBN: 9781451613308

by Judith Guest

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Overview

A novel inspired by a baffling true-life crime, Judith Guest's "finely tuned page-turner" (Publishers Weekly) melds heart-pounding suspense with an emotionally charged family drama.

The community of Blessed, Michigan, is shattered by the murder of the Norbois family — Paige, Edward, and their four children — in their summer home. Sheriff Hugh DeWitt, still grieving the loss of his infant son, is determined to find answers to a string of urgent questions: When did the murders occur? Which family member was the primary, intended, victim? What could have fueled such hate-driven violence? As suspects and secrets swirl around the case, one stunning revelation lies in wait: a shattering clue that may be right in Sheriff DeWitt's line of sight.

With her own untarnished eye, Judith Guest delivers a novel that transcends genre and showcases once again her remarkable literary gifts.

Synopsis

A novel inspired by a baffling true-life crime, Judith Guest's "finely tuned page-turner" (Publishers Weekly) melds heart-pounding suspense with an emotionally charged family drama.

With her own untarnished eye, Judith Guest delivers a novel that transcends genre and showcases once again her remarkable literary gifts.

Publishers Weekly

Loosely based on an actual unsolved crime that occurred in Michigan in the late 1960s, this tightly paced, gripping thriller is imbued with substance, sensitivity and depth. County sheriff Hugh DeWitt and his wife are still reeling three years after the SIDS death of their infant son and struggling to sustain a normal life for the sake of their 10-year-old daughter. The emotionally scarred DeWitt, once an overeager lawman, now cherishes the beauty of days "where nothing happens" in his quiet community. Though he knows all of the town's year-round residents by name, no one seems to know any of the affluent families who come to summer in anonymity along the bluffs of Lake Michigan. The Norbois are a classic example: the father a high-energy publishing executive, the mother and four kids a poster family for upper-middle-class values. When a handyman reports seeing something strange, DeWitt goes to investigate and finds they've all been ceremoniously executed and left to rot inside their palatial vacation retreat. Suddenly, DeWitt is on an emotional trail that jerks him back and forth between reflections on the anniversary of his son's death, the horrific murder scene and the serial rape/murders of a handful of University of Michigan coeds. As the point of view shifts from sheriff to victims and back again, Guest (Errands, etc.) keeps the plot moving along apace, creating a finely tuned page-turner. Agent, Patricia Karlan. (June) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Judith Guest

Judith Guest won the Janet Heidegger Kafka Prize for her first novel, Ordinary People, which was made into the Academy Award-winning 1980 film of the same name. Her other novels are Second Heaven, Killing Time in St. Cloud (with Rebecca Hill), and Errands. She lives with her family in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Harrisville, Michigan.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Fans of Guest's best-selling Ordinary People who hope to encounter a meaningful story with well-developed characters will be extremely disappointed by her newest work. Though the premise is enticing-it involves a true-life, 1960s Michigan mass murder-this thriller never comes together. The main problem: Guest fails to develop her characters, namely, the victims, an affluent family whose members fit stereotypes of the era: the financially successful father, the cheating mother, and the misunderstood and rebellious children. Guest misses another opportunity in Sheriff Hugh Dewitt, the main character and hero, who is wrestling with the loss of his young son. Instead of delving into his grief, Guest uses it as an excuse for Dewitt's bad behavior toward his family. Add to those problems her choice to write various passages from the viewpoints of the slaughtered family-since the reader doesn't know anything about them, these portions of the text are very confusing and add nothing to the story. Guest throws in a few red herrings, but the killer is fairly easy to figure out. Weak as this is, it's Guest's first novel since 1997; there will be demand, so be prepared. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/04.]-Marianne Fitzgerald, Anne Arundel Cty. Schs., Annapolis, MD Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

In a classy domestic whodunit, a backwoods sheriff tracks the killer of a troubled Michigan family. Hugh DeWitt, county sheriff in Blessed, Michigan, is nobody's idea of a hard-boiled cop. A quiet, gentle soul, Hugh is a happily settled husband and father who silently nurses his grief over the death of his baby son three years ago, meanwhile carrying on with life as best he can. Most of Hugh's work is routine boondocks stuff-roadhouse brawls, domestic violence-but one day he's jolted into an unwelcome new world when an entire family is found shot to death in his jurisdiction. Edward and Paige Norboise were a well-to-do couple from Ann Arbor who built a second home in Blessed for summer vacations with their four children. Edward ran a publishing house; Paige was a homemaker. As soon as Hugh looks into the case, he finds no lack of motive. Paige had only recently broken off an affair she'd been carrying on. Edward, meanwhile, had recently discovered that one of his employees had been embezzling and was threatening him with jail unless he paid it back. A local handyman (whom Edward had fired for drinking on the job) is found stealing evidence from the scene of the crime. And the college roommate of one of the murdered sons turns out to have had sinister connections with a string of coeds who were victims of a serial killer. Hugh knows from first experience how badly life can go; what he's not prepared for is discovering how some people do everything they can to make it do so. A bit formulaic, but, still, brisk and highly readable: Guest (Errands, 1997, etc.) has a keen eye for the delicate fault lines that underlie family life and excels at showing us the ravages of domestic collapse.