Review
A family is torn apart when a little girl goes missing and her two brothers grow up trying to care for a mother haunted by thoughts of her daughter. Eric becomes a successful neurosurgeon but the troubled Pilot is tormented by schizophrenia apparently triggered by the childhood tragedy. Through his trauma of hearing voices and seeing visions, he makes a new and terrible accusation and the truth, unravelled by loss, betrayal and madness, slowly comes to light. A chilling and impressive psychological novel of suspense.
Barry Forshaw, Crime Time
‘Smith’s marshalling of a complex plot shows real skill, and this is pretty well unputdownable.’
Product Description
Pilot, James Airie was named, curiously, after his father's passion - he flew for an airline. It wasn't a profession pilot ever considered for himself but Pilot had not exactly been himself since his little sister, Fiona, disappeared...Father, mother and Pilot's elder brother all believed that Fiona had been murdered. It tore the family apart. And even though Pilot's mother had transformed the pool into a garden, she could not bury the past. According to his neurosurgeon brother, Eric, Pilot had always been psychologically fragile, and now aged twenty-nine, he is still in therapy. And, he still continues to see Fiona in a series of still images, like a series of old photographs. The real ones his mother had hidden away. But Pilot can see, as if they are real, the tiny bumps of gooseflesh rising on the skin of her arms. There is a blur of red inside her mouth. There is a gurgling sound coming from somewhere inside her. Through a trauma of confusion, betrayal, madness and memories, Pilot feels his way toward the truth of what happened.
About the Author
Peter Moore Smith was born in Panama and lives in Manhattan with his wife Brigette, a graphic designer. His short fiction has appeared in the American Literary Review, Writer’s Forum, Folio, Louisiana Literature, the Greensboro Review, the Journal, the South Dakota Review, the Hawaii Review and the Massachusetts Review, among other places. His short story, ‘Oblivion, Nebraska’ has been selected for the Pushcart Prize 2000.
