High Water: A Novel [Hardcover]

Lynn Hightower (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2, 2002

A suspenseful and chilling tale of a family undone by a mother's mysterious death and a father's startling secrets.

Beaufort, South Carolina, is home to the Smallwoods, a family that appears close-knit but is in fact deeply at odds. The youngest sibling, Georgie, is consumed with anger at her father, Fielding, an unforgiving ex-marine, whose involvement in a notorious scandal many years earlier cast a shadow over his career and the Smallwood name. A fierce patriarch, Fielding neglects Georgie's mother; belittles her brother, Ashby; and denies her sister, Claire, the financial support she needs after a trying divorce. When her mother dies suddenly and of mysterious causes, Georgie immediately suspects that her father was somehow involved.

As she works to convince Ashby and Claire of her suspicions, however, their father is murdered, and Claire is implicated in his death. Georgie desperately attempts to piece together both her family and her personal life, but the evidence of their father's betrayal and the secrets of his past threaten to leave the Smallwood family in ruin.

As affecting as it is suspenseful, High Water infuses a harrowing mystery with an intensely personal study of the delicate, complex bonds that define a family. Lynn Hightower's most successful book yet, High Water, packs a powerful combination of intrigue and insight.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shamus Award-winning novelist Hightower temporarily abandons her series featuring Cincinnati single-mom PI, Sonora Blair (The Debt Collector, etc.), setting her latest in the picturesque town of Beaufort in the South Carolina low country. Narrated in the first person by 34-year-old unwed mother Georgie Smallwood, the oldest of three children of former Marine drill instructor Fielding Smallwood, this intensely involving study of family dysfunction examines the fallout of suppressed violence and the sins of the past. Confronted with the suspicious suicide of their mother, Georgie, her divorced sister, Claire, and their gay brother, Ashby, rendezvous at night over a couple of beers in their traditional meeting place, the Hunting Island lighthouse, and then at a bar. After their father is found dead from a fall down the lighthouse stairs the following morning, Claire is arrested on the testimony of a waitress who overheard her confess that she'd like to push him to his death. Lurking in the family's history is the Hardigree Incident (mirroring the real-life Ribbon Creek Incident), a 1956 scandal involving the forced night-march of a platoon of Parris Island, S.C., Marine recruits which resulted in the deaths of seven men. Fielding, the officer in charge of the camp at the time, is absolved of blame, but retires under a cloud. After his death, the matter surfaces again. Could someone from the camp have been blackmailing him? Hightower's labyrinthine narrative is overburdened with superfluous plot twists and characters, and the denouement, which comes almost as an afterthought, strains credibility. Still, the novel is distinguished by its driving prose, lyricism and psychological nuance.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Georgie is angry enough that her difficult father was involved in a scandal that has hurt the entire family, but now she suspects that he is implicated in her mother's death.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (July 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805067566
• ISBN-13: 978-0805067569
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,621,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow. What a powerful book., July 24, 2002

By 

Avid Mystery Reader (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Water: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm a big fan of the Sonora Blair books, and I live in Cincinnati where they are set, so I was doubly concerned that Lynn Hightower's newest book was not a Sonora Blair book.

Wow, were my socks knocked off by this book! A dysfunctional Southern family could be such a cliche or very trite, but Hightower pulls it off without going either way. Her characters have depth and humanity -- and you find yourself really rooting for them. Even when that means for them to do something really messed up <grin>.

High Water takes Hightower from a formidable mystery author to a serious character-driven author with a mystery involved (think James Lee Burke). If you're hesitant because you love the Blair books, go ahead and read High Water. If you haven't read any of Hightower's previous books, this one will hook you on her writing, and you can go back and read the Sonora Blair books.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful but very sad, August 18, 2002

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: High Water: A Novel (Hardcover)

Don't read this book if you're looking for a cheer-up. Hightower writes about yet another dysfunctional southern family. The heroine, Georgie, has escaped to her own antique shop; her sister is charmingly in her own world; her brother is gay. Georgie had a baby at the age of sixteen, a son who is now sixteen himself, and who has disappeared for the last two years.

The family comes together after their mother dies under mysterious circumstances and Georgie suspects their father was responsible. Their father, while not typically abusive, could be cruel; his life has been directed by a stint in the Marine Corps, where he met men who would influence the rest of his life.

Although the story is a suspenseful page-turner, we don't learn the story until the last few pages, when everything comes together. We get a sense of "Yes, now it all makes sense."
Yet in the end three people are dead and two were innocent of anything except getting caught up too deeply in the family struggles. One was implicated, falsely, in a murder.

Among novels of dysfunctional families and psychological suspense, High Water ranks as one of the best. Unfortunately, I had just picked up Sacrament of Lies by Elizabeth Dewberry, which has a similar theme -- heroine wondering if father killed mother -- but is not as plausible, deep or well-written. After reading the two in sequence, I began to wonder if this isn't some new sub-genre, just as child and wife abuse was a theme a few years ago.
If you have to choose, read this one.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I miss Senora but I love this book!, October 6, 2002

By 

Sherry Russell "Reviewer/author" (Vero Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: High Water: A Novel (Hardcover)

I love Lynn Hightower's writing. She is one of my most favorite writers. After reading Debt Collector I couldn't wait for another "Senora" book but I really liked High Water.
High Water is high-grade entertainment from beginning to the end. Another great story from Ms. Hightower!