A Guide for Murdered Children

by Bruce Wagner

"In her astonishing thriller, Sarah Sparrow has joined the ranks of Shirley Jackson and Stephen King. A there is no safe place to read this book." –David Cronenberg  Originally Published under the name Sarah Sparrow, Bruce Wagner's A Guide for Murdered Children is terrifying, thoroughly original, and hauntingly written.  Ex-NYPD detective Willow Wylde is fresh out of rehab and finally able to find a job running a Cold Case squad in suburban Detroit. When the two rookie cops assigned to him take an obsessive interest in a decades-old disappearance of a brother and sister, Willow begins to suspect something out of the ordinary is afoot. He uncovers a series of church basement AA-type meetings made up of the slain innocents and a new way of looking at life, death, murder—and missed opportunities—is revealed to him.  A Guide for Murdered Children is a genre-busting, mind-bending twist on the fine line between the ordinary . . . and the unfathomable.

456 pages, Paperback

Published November 12, 2024

About the author

Bruce Wagner is the author of The Chrysanthemum Palace (a PEN Faulkner fiction award finalist); Still Holding; I'll Let You Go (a PEN USA fiction award finalist); I'm Losing You; and Force Majeure. He lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Lena Kantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remembered reading the synopsis of this in a bookstore and then it just sat on my to-read list for around 2 years. Picking it up for a road trip, I was not ready for the insanity of the metaphysical world that Wagner creates in this book. I just signed up for a murder mystery and got sooooo much more.