On the same night that Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, ten-year-old Charlie Olmstead jumped on his bike to see if there was some way he could get a better look. It was the last anyone ever saw of him. After Perry Hollow Police Chief Jim Campbell found Charlie’s bike caught in the water above Sunset Falls, he assumed the worst. Everyone did—except Charlie’s mother.
Years later, Eric Olmstead—now a famous author and Charlie’s younger brother—has come back to Perry Hollow to bury his mother and fulfill her last request: Find Charlie. To do so, he goes to the current police chief, his former sweetheart, Kat Campbell, who happens to be Jim Campbell’s daughter. Together they soon discover that Eric’s mother was convinced Charlie was kidnapped, and that finding him—whether he was dead or alive—was her secret obsession. While she never succeeded, she did uncover clues that suggested he wasn’t the only boy across Pennsylvania to vanish into thin air during that time.
The haunting story of a boy missing for forty years, and of a small town that found lies easier to believe than the truth, explodes into the present in Bad Moon, Todd Ritter’s excellent follow-up to his acclaimed debut.
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"Ritter sets the scene using the moon landings as the basis for a succession of crimes and keeps the reader guessing about the final outcome. His fully developed characters complement the flawless pacing." - RT Book Reviews
"(It) draws you in irresistibly and doesn't spit you out till the very end, your head spinning with surprising revelations." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Ritter's second outing (after Death Notice) will captivate readers with a tone reminiscent of John Hart (Down River) and Chelsea Cain (The Night Season)." - Library Journal (starred review)
"An adroit puzzler with a genuinely surprising ending." - Booklist
A Special Review of BAD MOON from New York Times Bestselling Author Lisa Unger
It’s July 20, 1969, and we return to Perry Hollow in a dreamy, shimmering opening scene where Neil Armstrong is making history. But as the television in the Olmstead living room casts its eerie light, a much bigger drama is unfolding. Ten-year-old Charlie has taken off on his bicycle, certain that he can see the astronaut bouncing along the surface of the glowing full moon. He doesn’t come home. And on that night, when the world was staring in wonder at the heavens, Charlie’s mother was running through the streets of Perry Hollows, looking for her son. She never found him.
For a mother, the loss of a child is a far more impacting event than the first moonwalk. And though the authorities and the rest of the town thought that Charlie was lost to an accident that night – his mother Maggie never believed it. She spent her whole life secretly searching for her son, for some kind of closure that never came. In BAD MOON, Todd Ritter’s compelling follow-up to last year’s acclaimed DEATH NOTICE, most everyone is carrying that same burden, looking for answers that may or may not ever come.
More than 40 years after Charlie’s disappearance, his brother, bestselling novelist Eric Olmstead has returned home to honor his mother’s dying wish: FIND HIM. He enlists the help of Nick Donnelly who, after losing his job with the state police, dedicates his life to solving cold cases. He, too, may be seeking a kind of closure in helping grieving families find answers when everyone else has given up. He knows what it’s like to live with haunting questions.
Enter Perry Hollow Police Chief Kat Campbell. Her own father ran the 1969 investigation into Charlie’s disappearance; and in following his notes, she realizes that he overlooked – or ignored -- critical clues. But why? To complicate matters, Eric and Kat share a history themselves, a painful one she’d rather forget. The past, it seems, wants to find a way out of the grave to wrap itself around the present.
Ritter delves deep into the veiled, complicated lives of Perry Hollows residents. And in doing so he tackles some big themes: What does it mean to be someone’s parent? And what does it mean to be someone’s child? How far will we go to hide the truth about ourselves and the people we love? In this complex, and expertly plotted outing, Todd Ritter explores these matters with a deft hand, never letting the suspense lag for even a moment -- right through to the astonishing conclusion.
About Lisa Unger:
Lisa Unger is an award-winning New York Times and international bestselling author. Her novels have sold over 1 million copies in the U.S. and have been translated into 26 different languages. Her writing has been hailed as "masterful" (St. Petersburg Times), "sensational" (Publishers Weekly) and "sophisticated" (New York Daily News) with "gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose" (Associated Press).
About the Author
TODD RITTER, author of Death Notice, is a career journalist and is currently at The Star-Ledger. He lives in suburban New Jersey. This is his second novel.
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Forty years later Eric Olmstead, just an infant at the time his older brother disappeared, returns to Perry Hollow to tend to his mother in her dying days. Her final request of Eric: Find him. Find your brother. Apparently his mother always believed Charlie was kidnapped, and feeling the obligation to at least make a token effort to fulfill her request, Eric hires private investigator Nick Donnelly, whose foundation is dedicated to solving cold-cases. In addition to being a former Pennsylvania State Police investigator, Donnelly is also specifically familiar with Perry Hollow, having previously worked with Perry Hollow Police Chief Kat Campbell on a serial killing investigation (Death Notice). Nick looks Kat up when he gets to town, and together they meet with Eric, who has discovered something interesting while cleaning out his mother's house - a board containing a map of the state with six locations marked in red, each accompanied by a clipping from a newspaper detailing a missing child.
Not only does it look like Mrs. Olmstead may have been right about Charlie being abducted, he apparently wasn't the only one. Five other boys around Charlie's age also went missing in rural Pennsylvania within a few years of Charlie. What could be written off as coincidence becomes chilling when the investigators realize each of the abductions occurred the same day an Apollo Mission successfully landed on the moon... starting with Charlie's.
Though the events in Bad Moon unfold over barely a three day timeframe, there is nothing about the book which feels hurried. In his debut, Death Notice, author Todd Ritter created a story fraught with tension which rocketed along propelled by the investigators' race to identify and capture a serial killer before another innocent fell victim to his madness. In this spectacular second outing Ritter once again builds his story around the actions of a serial killer, but this time instead of a race against the clock scenario Ritter looks to an entirely different source to provide the tension which propels the story: relationships and secrets.
As Campbell and Donnelly begin digging into the forty year old disappearances they discover it's not the cold trail which is their biggest impediment to piecing together the facts, but rather the long simmering secrets of a small town. In unravelling the mystery of the decades old abductions Ritter examines the bonds between people - parent to child, husband to wife, brother to brother, neighbor to neighbor - and how people's perceptions, both of themselves and their obligations, can drive and distort their actions over time. Ritter delicately peels back layer after layer of Perry Hollow, showing how the same events can both unite and tear a town apart. The result is a simply stunning piece of writing.
With Death Notice Ritter served notice that he was an author to watch, and with Bad Moon he shows that his talent undeniably continues to rise.
Published Minotaur Books, (c) 2011
Hardcover Edition: 356 pages
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
On the night Neil Armstrong walked the moon, a little boy named Charlie Olmstead, a resident of Perry Hollow, PA, got on his bike to get a better look, if he could, but the indiscernible horror that followed would make bigger news. Eleven-year-old Charlie would be a missing case.
Weaving backstory and flashbacks with current events, Ritter uses a clever hand at creating suspense, and he is at his best, creatively, with Bad Moon. Much like his first mystery/suspense novel featuring Police Chief Kat Campbell, Death Notice, Bad Moon follows suit, creepy and dark, but in a less than gory approach. No embalmed bodies with sewn mouths, or manmade coffins on the side of the road.
Bad Moon is much better. Well-drawn characters and quality writing propel Ritter's latest novel into a darker, more explosive place in time. Ritter knows how to write, drawing you into a haunting story with interesting, compelling characters. The novel begins on that wondrous event on July 1969, the night Armstrong walked the moon. And when the disappearance of Charlie Olmstead begins: his overturned bicycle on the edge along the edge of Perry Hollow's rushing falls, its rear wheel spinning, the little boy's mother, Maggie in tumult, screaming, watching, with little to do but ogle the angry currents below, washing away the memory of her small child, a mother's worst nightmare begins.
Gripping, twisty, unflinching, and most believable, Bad Moon is a refreshing work of fiction, an escape where avid mystery readers will relish every word from this gifted author. Recommended. Rated: A
T.B. Grant
8.16.12
