Vanishing Rockwell

by Darren Hall

When Jack Hagen twists open the back of the abandoned locker in the empty high school, he finds the browned slips of paper written in his sister’s hand—more importantly, he’s forced to acknowledge that maybe his former best friend isn’t the one responsible for her murder.

It was supposed to be a prank, one last caper before closing the door on youthful indiscretion and tugging on the mask of adulthood. As seniors in high school, it was the only thing they really cared about—the chance to leave a legacy that lasted longer than the cliché of spray painted numerals on the water tower or For Sale signs plastered in the principal’s yard. They had prepared it for weeks, and up until the moment the trunk of the car had been lifted in the lobby of the high school, the execution had been flawless. That’s when the police found the body, and the futures they had each haphazardly mapped out began to unravel.

Sixteen years later, the hamlets and haunts of their youth are deteriorating, and the scandal is just one more of the unspoken histories attached to each of them like the stillness of his shadow. But when the voices of the dead begin to speak, there are those as desperate to keep them silenced as those frantic to decipher their messages.

274 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 22, 2015

Reviews

[Sarah Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of all time. It took me a bit to truly get into it (I am a teenage girl and have zero interest in golf or such main topics within the novel) but when I read more and more, I just loved every bit of it. I enjoyed the mystery and did not pick up on any clues towards who the perpetrator was, so when I found out it was a huge surprise. The language and literary devices used throughout the novel were my favorite because Hall is superb with selecting descriptive words. I loved this book and it will probably stay in my top favorites forever.

[Shane Bagby · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good. The protagonist was relatable, and the story was compelling. Jack reminded me a lot of my literature teacher in high school. I was not as good a student as I should have been—inappropriately stubborn, I think—but I had a great teacher.

[Jeanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is actually by a colleauge of mine, Darren Hall. I am amazed that anybody could have the creativity and persistence to write a full-length novel. It was quite strange to read a novel by a person I know because it's difficult to separate what you know about the author with certain voices and traits in the characters. I don't read murder mysteries very often, but once I got past the first couple of chapters and could focus on the characters of Luke and Jack, I found it very unsettling and sufficiently intriguing. It was tough to put down at bedtime because I just wanted to keep reading and find out who was responsible.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun to read, since I went to youth group with the author, though also distracting because the surnames of characters are often the same as people from high school. I kept being startled ("Wait. X is in this book? Oh. No, it's just a character's name....") . Captures small-town life perfectly, and the feeling of not moving forward in time, and probably captures teenage boy friendship too -- the dialogues certainly sound realistic. Plot is super convoluted. And there's some copy-editing to do be done. But I enjoyed reading.