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Publisher Unknown, Kindle Edition
Description
In John Rector's dark and fascinating psychological thriller, The Grove, farmer Dexter McCray becomes both detective and suspect. He is a man fighting to escape a troubled past, but after waking from an alcoholic blackout to discover his tractor stuck in a ditch and the body of a teenage girl in the cottonwood grove bordering his cornfield, he wonders if it's a fight he cannot win. In the hopes of proving his innocence, he sets out to find the truth. Now, isolated from friends and family and devoid of an alibi, he turns to the only person left who can help pick up the pieces of his shattered life...the dead girl herself. Rector understands the complexities of a haunting tale and a compelling who-done-it, and he takes listeners on a ride that is both memorable and unsettling. "Tough, dark, and beautifully told. Great storytelling." - David Peoples, screenwriter of Unforgiven, Twelve Monkeys, and Blade Runner "Spare and evocative as a cornfield in autumn, The Grove marks the arrival of a haunting, powerful new voice in contemporary fiction. John Rector writes with deceptive grace, spinning out irresistible prose with a dark pulse between every line. This is psychological suspense at its most seductive. I loved it." - Sean Doolittle, award-winning author of Dirt, Burn, Rain Dogs, The Cleanup, and Safer… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member knipfty
Absolutely could not put this one down! The story grabs you in the fist few pages. Each step of the way, you are drawn into the the main characters delusional world as it spirals out of control. Awesome book!
LibraryThing member f.bludevil
I bought this book because it was inexpensive and I had read a short review on a blog recommending the book. I was hoping for a couple of hours of recreational reading and a feeling that I hadn't wasted a couple of bucks. Well, far from it, this was the best couple of bucks I've spent on an unknown
A man finds a girls body in his corn field. His personal life is in shambles and he should be taking medication but he's not. The girl (the dead one) wants his help. The story then becomes a challenge of determining what's real and what's not.
It is a page turner in the classical sense, it's disturbing, but you can't put it down. With every page you, like the protagonist being drawn deeper and deeper into something you probably should avoid. Only, you know you are on a path and you know you are both now doomed to follow this path to it's completion ....cause you can't put it down.
It's good ....really good.
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author (at least to me) in a very long time.A man finds a girls body in his corn field. His personal life is in shambles and he should be taking medication but he's not. The girl (the dead one) wants his help. The story then becomes a challenge of determining what's real and what's not.
It is a page turner in the classical sense, it's disturbing, but you can't put it down. With every page you, like the protagonist being drawn deeper and deeper into something you probably should avoid. Only, you know you are on a path and you know you are both now doomed to follow this path to it's completion ....cause you can't put it down.
It's good ....really good.
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LibraryThing member KevinJoseph
The most distinctive aspect of this murder mystery is the unreliable narrator, Dexter McCray, a reformed ex-con and psychiatric patient whose life is spiraling back toward madness since the death of his young daughter and decision to stop taking his medication. When Dexter awakens from a drinking
And this is just the first in a string of progressively worse decisions, as Dexter's ham-fisted efforts at investigating the murder draw more and more attention to his imbalanced state of mind. Drunk almost the entire novel and haunted by a macabre vision of the dead girl who talks him out of making rational decisions, the Dexter's mad antics ratchet up the suspense to a nearly unbearable level. How many more bad decisions can Dexter make, we wonder, before someone finally suspects he's the murderer?
John Rector's spare prose and dark atmosphere work effectively, and the interplay between Dexter's memories of his dead daughter and sympathies toward the murdered girl in his field gives the story some convincing psychological depth. The one thing that kept me from awarding five stars is the lack of believability in some of the later plot points, which allows Dexter to go undetected by his Sheriff friend and wife far longer than seems plausible. But if you can get past this plausibility challenge and are not turned off by some graphic images, you will likely find The Grove to be a unique and compelling mystery.
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binge with no memory of the previous night's events and finds a teenage girl's dead body lying in the field near his house, he fears the absolute worst. Despite the fact that the local sheriff happens to be a childhood friend, the unmedicated Dexter makes a rash decision to solve the murder himself before going to the authorities. And this is just the first in a string of progressively worse decisions, as Dexter's ham-fisted efforts at investigating the murder draw more and more attention to his imbalanced state of mind. Drunk almost the entire novel and haunted by a macabre vision of the dead girl who talks him out of making rational decisions, the Dexter's mad antics ratchet up the suspense to a nearly unbearable level. How many more bad decisions can Dexter make, we wonder, before someone finally suspects he's the murderer?
John Rector's spare prose and dark atmosphere work effectively, and the interplay between Dexter's memories of his dead daughter and sympathies toward the murdered girl in his field gives the story some convincing psychological depth. The one thing that kept me from awarding five stars is the lack of believability in some of the later plot points, which allows Dexter to go undetected by his Sheriff friend and wife far longer than seems plausible. But if you can get past this plausibility challenge and are not turned off by some graphic images, you will likely find The Grove to be a unique and compelling mystery.
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LibraryThing member caitemaire
Dexter, wakes up in his bed one morning, fully dressed, to find his friend, the local sheriff, standing over him and any memory of what happened last night gone. The sheriff is there because Dexter's wife called to tell him how angry and out of control Dexter was the night before, one reason she
Dexter has no memory of that either. Maybe because he has stopped taking his medication, medication that he has been taking since his stint years ago in the mental institution, and has started heavily drinking instead. Not good decisions, but two of only many, many bad decisions Dexter makes in this book.
When he goes out into the field to try and move the tractor, he catches a glimpse of something in the grove of trees that borders his farm. Thinking it is trash from the kids that sometimes hang out there at night, he is shocked to find a body, the dead body, of a young high school girl. At first, he starts to call the police, but then he knows that he will be their first suspect. And in fact, he is not at all sure that he did not kill her, since he can't remember the previous night.
So...he decides to investigate what happened himself. Not really smart.
But don't worry. He will not have to do it himself.
The bad new is that his companion is the dead girl herself, increasing horrible visions of the dead girl, urging him on to more ever more irrational and horrible things.
Dexter suffers from some unnamed metal disorder, which sounds a lot like schizophrenia, and is not helped by the fact that he has stopped taking the medication that have kept the voices at bay for years, or by the fact that he is drinking continually for most of the book. A very bad combination.
He is a man spiraling out of control. As we find out, something terrible has happen in Dexter's life in the previous year that has set off this decline and now his wife has left him and he is losing his tentative grasp on reality.Could he have killed someone in a drunken, mentally impaired blackout?
Well, he has before…
To have any sympathy for the narrator, you have to accept that there is, to him, some sort of logic in his endless series of bad, drunken, mad decisions. And I am not sure why, but I did. Maybe the concern of his friend, the sheriff and his wife is enough to convince us that he was once a different man and could be again. I did indeed find something likable and sympathetic about him. Yes, he is doing some very irrational things, all seeming just making the situation worse. But the reader still has some hope that maybe it will all work out, although it seems increasing unlikely. This book is a quick read and one that I found a real page turner. It is well written in a very direct style that suits the slightly bizarre story perfectly. Dark and creepy and disturbing and, luckily, short enough to be read in one long, scary sitting...all alone..in the dark...in the cold wee hours of the night.
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had left to move in with her mom for the time being. The sheriff also tells him that his tractor is gone from it's usual parking place and appears to have been driven into one of the fields, and is now stuck in a ditch.Dexter has no memory of that either. Maybe because he has stopped taking his medication, medication that he has been taking since his stint years ago in the mental institution, and has started heavily drinking instead. Not good decisions, but two of only many, many bad decisions Dexter makes in this book.
When he goes out into the field to try and move the tractor, he catches a glimpse of something in the grove of trees that borders his farm. Thinking it is trash from the kids that sometimes hang out there at night, he is shocked to find a body, the dead body, of a young high school girl. At first, he starts to call the police, but then he knows that he will be their first suspect. And in fact, he is not at all sure that he did not kill her, since he can't remember the previous night.
So...he decides to investigate what happened himself. Not really smart.
But don't worry. He will not have to do it himself.
The bad new is that his companion is the dead girl herself, increasing horrible visions of the dead girl, urging him on to more ever more irrational and horrible things.
Dexter suffers from some unnamed metal disorder, which sounds a lot like schizophrenia, and is not helped by the fact that he has stopped taking the medication that have kept the voices at bay for years, or by the fact that he is drinking continually for most of the book. A very bad combination.
He is a man spiraling out of control. As we find out, something terrible has happen in Dexter's life in the previous year that has set off this decline and now his wife has left him and he is losing his tentative grasp on reality.Could he have killed someone in a drunken, mentally impaired blackout?
Well, he has before…
To have any sympathy for the narrator, you have to accept that there is, to him, some sort of logic in his endless series of bad, drunken, mad decisions. And I am not sure why, but I did. Maybe the concern of his friend, the sheriff and his wife is enough to convince us that he was once a different man and could be again. I did indeed find something likable and sympathetic about him. Yes, he is doing some very irrational things, all seeming just making the situation worse. But the reader still has some hope that maybe it will all work out, although it seems increasing unlikely. This book is a quick read and one that I found a real page turner. It is well written in a very direct style that suits the slightly bizarre story perfectly. Dark and creepy and disturbing and, luckily, short enough to be read in one long, scary sitting...all alone..in the dark...in the cold wee hours of the night.
Show Less
LibraryThing member pidgeon92
Loved this book. It was short and creepy, following a man and his descent into madness. Started it last night, finished it this afternoon.
LibraryThing member Bettyb30
I have to agree! this book was quite a ride. I know of people like this but you never get the full effect to you actually put yourself there. That is what this book does, it puts you there and allows you to encounter the encounter with the dead. Truely remarkable.