Synopsis: Dylan and her friends have been haunted by the Drifter ever since Clarence was killed when they were in kindergarten. The memory of that event haunts the friends and binds them together. Now, ten years later, it seems the Drifter is back and the murders are edging closer to their mountain community.

Review ‘Don't read Sight at home on your own’ says the caption, but once started you can’t put it down, as this novel absorbs from the start.

On the surface this is a fast moving murder story, but underneath it has much to reveal about relationships between friends, in families, and in small communities. The setting, Pine Mountain, lately re-named Paradise Mountain to attract seasonal visitors, is remote from UK experience, but the situation facing the community is one which readers will recognize – the inexorable diminution of its inherent identity as incomers change the traditional way of life. As the story develops it becomes clear however that the tightly-knit founding families also have hugely destructive elements within them.

Vrettos’ engaging main character is Dylan, who has visions of the crimes but can't ever see the Drifter's face, and who cannot reveal her secret to anyone except her mother and the local policewoman. Dylan is tortured by her ability to see the murders, and her apparent inability to prevent them. Her release comes as a result of her friendship with Cate, who, with her father, has just arrived from a city in the east, and gradually we realize that Dylan, her oldest and best friend Pilar, and Cate herself have unfaced secrets in their lives which stretch back to the Drifter’s first appearance.

A gripping psychological thriller with a great deal more to it to make readers think.

2008-01-25