Kissing the Beehive

A writer returns to his hometown to look into a long-ago murder in this “gripping” literary thriller with “a smashing and surprising climax” (Kirkus Reviews).

After nine books, three wives, and a massive advance for his as-yet-unwritten next novel, Sam Bayer has run out of ideas. He tries to write but his characters are dull, lifeless. So his thoughts turn to his hometown, Crane’s View, and the tragedy he once encountered there.

Bayer was fifteen when he found Pauline Ostrova floating in the Hudson River. The official verdict was murder, and the girl’s ex-boyfriend was convicted. But decades later, Bayer remains certain the killer still lives in his bucolic town—and he’s determined to write a book about what really happened. He’s come home for inspiration, but the longer he stays, the more Bayer’s investigation spirals toward madness and a final, shocking conclusion.

Jonathan Lethem says of Jonathan Carroll that readers “crave his narratives like an illegal substance,” and here the celebrated author begins his addictive Crane’s View Trilogy, which continues with The Marriage of Sticks and the New York Times Notable Book The Wooden Sea, with a smart, suspenseful novel that’s “strung like a piano wire” (Library Journal).

This ebook contains an all-new introduction by Jonathan Carroll, as well as an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from his personal collection.