The Fate of Katherine Carr [Hardcover]

Thomas H. Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2009

George Gates used to be a travel writer who specialized in places where people disappeared—Judge Crater, the Lost Colony.Then his eight-year-old son was murdered, the killer never found, and Gates gave up disappearance. Now he writes stories of redemptive triviality about flower festivals and local celebrities for the town paper, and spends his evenings haunted by the image of his son’s last day.

Enter Arlo MacBride, a retired missing-persons detective still obsessed with the unsolved case of Katherine Carr. When he gives Gates the story she left behind—a story of a man stalking a woman named Katherine Carr—Gates too is drawn inexorably into a search for the missing author’s brief life and uncertain fate. And as he goes deeper, he begins to suspect that her tale holds the key not only to her fate, but to his own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. George Gates, who once toured the world as a travel writer, churns out fluff pieces for his local paper and spends his nights alone, imagining what he'd do to the person who murdered his eight-year-old son seven years before and is still at large in Cook's eerily poignant novel. When Arlo McBride, a retired missing persons detective, tells Gates about the unsolved disappearance of reclusive poet Katherine Carr 20 years earlier, Gates is intrigued. Cook (Master of the Delta) seamlessly intertwines the short story Carr left behind—about a woman also named Katherine Carr—with Gates's growing obsession with Carr's fate. When his editor suggests that Gates write a profile of Alice Barrows, an orphan girl dying of progeria (premature aging), he discovers that Alice is an avid detective fan, and together they form an unlikely partnership. Adept at merging past and present plot lines, Cook eloquently examines the often cathartic act of storytelling. Author tour. (June)
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From Booklist

Cook, the author of 21 novels, has been nominated for the Edgar seven times and won once (for The Chatham School Affair, 1996). His latest is as much an investigation into character as it is a cold-case mystery. Hero George Gates has been completely broken by the kidnapping and murder of his eight-year-old son seven years ago. Gates is a former travel writer, much given to writing about places where people disappeared. Now he salves his psyche by writing totally innocuous small features for the local paper. A chance meeting at a bar with the detective who organized the search parties when Gates’ son went missing leads Gates into a new interest, a cold case that has obsessed the detective for two decades. Retired missing-persons detective Arlo McBride shows Gates the poems and journal that the 31-year-old missing woman left behind, and both men are pulled into reopening the case. The action tends to crawl, but the characters are rich and fascinating. Give this one to fans of Kate Atkinson’s acclaimed When Will There Be Good News? (2008). --Connie Fletcher

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (June 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151014019
• ISBN-13: 978-0151014019
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,056,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

THOMAS H. COOK was born in Fort Payne, Alabama, in 1947. He has been nominated for the Edgar Award seven times in five different categories. He received the best novel Edgar for The Chatham School Affair, the Martin Beck Award, the Herodotus Prize for best historical short story, and the Barry for best novel for Red Leaves, and has been nominated for numerous other awards.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem of mystery and suspense by a Master storyteller, June 7, 2009

By 

A. Koren "sharing quality" (WOODSTOCK, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fate of Katherine Carr (Hardcover)

Edgar award winner Thomas H. Cook delivers one of the finest tension filled mysteries out there. This is mystery writing at its most imaginative, provocative and captivating. If you don't have a lot of time to find an exceptional read then get your hands on this book. The story is chilling and haunting. There is a menacing dark sustained drive here that will keep you guessing and turning pages until the last one. . If you want to go on a roller coaster ride.....
One of the many qualities that makes this read unique is its simple texture. It is not just a fine mystery, it is a special piece of literature. The reader feels that each word is carefully chosen-written to compel, to push the book forward with more and more intensity and agitation. An exceptional offering.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intricate mystery, memorable characters, beautiful prose, June 13, 2009

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M. Lightbody (Madras, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fate of Katherine Carr (Hardcover)

Katherine Carr disappeared twenty years ago. She is the mystery that Arlo McBride, the retired homicide detective has never forgotten. She left behind poems and a story and little else.

George Gates, once a travel writer, has something he can't leave behind; the death of his eight year old son, killed by a predator, the mystery never solved. Alice Barrows is leaving everything behind. She is twelve years old and dying from progeria.

In this beautiful story of vengeance, redemption and hope the fates of Alice and George and Katherine are woven together, in Cook's always luminous prose. Cook writes in allusions and metaphors and pictures so that you see the story as he writes it, with an immediacy of description that keeps the reader turning the pages. I'm not sure why I devoured the book but it was some combination of gorgeous writing, great characters and solid plotting. Nothing is ever outlandish but Cook takes you further and further from the mundane and you find yourself hoping and believing for all the characters.

If you have never read Cook? Start with this one. This book is a rare treat.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The effects of unsolved crime on its victims, July 31, 2009

By 

L. S. Jaszczak "servant of the secret fire" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fate of Katherine Carr (Hardcover)

George Gates is a former travel writer and investigator of historical mysteries who has retreated to safe, superficial newspaper writing after his young son was kidnaped and murdered. He then gets sucked into the mystery of what happened to a local writer (Katherine Carr) who walked out of her house one day in 1987 and vanished, leaving behind a mysterious story that seems to relate to her own life. He also becomes involved (both professionally and emotionally) with a 12-year-old girl dying of progeria (the "aging" disease), with whom he reads through the story, attempting to find clues to what happened to Katherine.

I think of this book as structured like a spiral, going from Gates' telling of his own story to a man he meets after the events of the book, to his investigation of Katherine's disappearance, to Katherine's story from 20 years before, and back. On the way it provides an interesting meditation on the effects of loss and crime (especially unsolved crime) on its victims; not only has Gates lost his son, but Katherine had become a virtual recluse before her disappearance due to a vicious beating she had suffered a few years before. The ending is rather ambiguous, though, and the whole book seems unfocused - possibly a necessary effect of its structure and content, but that may account for the lack of complete satisfaction on my part.

P.S. As with other books I've seen or read lately, the cover bugs the hell out of me. It appears to be a young (pre-adolescent) girl, though it's hard to tell since the close-up cuts off most of the face. The only character who fits that description is dying of premature aging and wheelchair-bound. Why is it considered so unacceptable in some circles to have a cover that bears some relation to the content of the book?