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IF IT IS APRIL
In April of 1924, Jake Reed is twenty-two years old – jobless, friendless, and just out of prison. When the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is destroyed by a flood, Jake’s locktender father drops him off forty miles downriver at an abandoned lock. Jake’s job is to spend a week or two clearing flood debris, then ride home with two mules.
But the mundane assignment takes an unexpected turn when he discovers a mysterious girl is hiding out in his father’s deserted lockhouse. She claims not to know her own name or anything about her past -- she only remembers the four days since the flood. Jake says he’ll call her April and let her stay while he tries to find someone who recognizes her.
But he soon learns that the county sheriff wants to question a girl named Katie Elgin. After an evening with Katie, a young man named Lee Fisher washed up dead in the flood with a slashed neck. A hill-country fixer named Cole is also looking for the Elgin girl, convinced she stole something valuable from his moonshiner partners during the flood.
Jake hopes the resurfacing shards of April’s memory will confirm her identity and provide an alibi. Until that happens, he needs to keep her safe from her pursuers. But when the mosaic of remembered scenes begins to hint that April may be less innocent than she appears, Jake must decide how far he will go to protect her -- and whether he can let go of her past, and his own.
But the mundane assignment takes an unexpected turn when he discovers a mysterious girl is hiding out in his father’s deserted lockhouse. She claims not to know her own name or anything about her past -- she only remembers the four days since the flood. Jake says he’ll call her April and let her stay while he tries to find someone who recognizes her.
But he soon learns that the county sheriff wants to question a girl named Katie Elgin. After an evening with Katie, a young man named Lee Fisher washed up dead in the flood with a slashed neck. A hill-country fixer named Cole is also looking for the Elgin girl, convinced she stole something valuable from his moonshiner partners during the flood.
Jake hopes the resurfacing shards of April’s memory will confirm her identity and provide an alibi. Until that happens, he needs to keep her safe from her pursuers. But when the mosaic of remembered scenes begins to hint that April may be less innocent than she appears, Jake must decide how far he will go to protect her -- and whether he can let go of her past, and his own.
296 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 16, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 25, 2020
Mr. Stabler has a talent for writing about the natural world. Rivers are a wondrous part of nature and the Potomac and Yukon provide an incredible setting for this trilogy. It was an enjoyable and suspenseful journey through all three books with interesting characters and a touch of the supernatural woven in. The books are tied together but standing alone they are quite different from each other. It's most fresh in my mind but If It Is April may be my favorite of the three.
March 2, 2017
The final book of the trilogy. Wow! The twists and turns the 3 books have brought along. This was probably my favorite of them, but you do need to read them in order for any of it to make sense. The author has put a lot of time into the books as far as research. I would like to travel East and see the locks and parts of the story he tells, although I think I would be constantly looking over my shoulder. This story is more of a love story. There could easily be another book written.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews