Their son is gone. Deep down, they think they’re to blame.Summertime in Bleak Harbor means tourists, overpriced restaurants, and the Dragonfly Festival. One day before the much-awaited and equally chaotic celebration, Danny Peters, the youngest member of the family that founded the town five generations ago, disappears. When Danny’s mother, Carey, and stepfather, Pete, receive a photo of their … receive a photo of their brilliant, autistic, and socially withdrawn son tied to a chair, they fear the worst. But there’s also more to the story. Someone is sending them ominous texts and emails filled with information no one else should have. Could the secrets they’ve kept hidden–even from one another–have led to Danny’s abduction?
As pressure from the kidnapper mounts, Carey and Pete must face their own ugly mistakes to find their son before he’s taken from them forever.
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The myth of the happy family! Bryan Gruley dives deep into twisted psyches, well-hidden secrets, and dark, explosive desires. Welcome to Bleak Harbor. Be afraid.
Bryan Gruley’s Bleak Harbor is an electric bolt of suspense, packed with twists and surprises. Gruley’s plot races along, powered by characters — big and small — who truly crackle. A masterful follow-up to his Starvation Lake trilogy.
Bryan Gruley creates a fascinating calamity of flawed characters, each hiding secrets in the haunting town of Bleak Harbor. His portrayal of an autistic boy’s kidnapping, and the subsequent efforts to find and rescue him, gradually and brilliantly exposes the decidedly dark underbelly of both the town and all those living in it. I dare you to put the book down. I couldn’t.
The best book Gruley has ever written and unlike any other crime book I’ve ever read.
This is a jam-packed mystery/thriller. The plot never stops. After about 50 pages I was compelled to keep reading, especially since Gruley’s prose seems so effortlessly smooth. There are a lot characters, and everyone of them seems to have a secret or an angle, so it does take focus to keep them all straight. I figured out the perpetrator (something I rarely do) about half-way through, but that didn’t keep me from trying to figure out how and why they did it. I’m still a little fuzzy on their motivation, but that might just be me; sometimes I need things clearly spelled out. Even so, this was a well-crafted, mesmerizing read. Don’t miss it!
Vivid, spellbinding, and laced with tension, Bleak Harbor’s labyrinthine mystery is packed with characters so real you want to buy them a beer — or hide under your bed to pray they don’t come for you. If you’re not reading Bryan Gruley, you’re missing out.
Bryan Gruley’s novel Bleak Harbor is a mystery filled with people readers love to hate. For starters there’s Carey, Danny’s mom, self-centered and self-important, had a Valentine’s Day poke with her boss and is now trying to extort money from him. Her husband Pete is a former commodities trader who lost his job and now runs a medical marijuana shop in Bleak Harbor, Carey Bleak Peterson’s home town. He’s an alcoholic and has been buying his merchandise from a dark source to whom he owns a bundle of money. Neither one of them has much time for Danny until he disappears. Kidnapped. And then we get to meet more unpleasant characters in this twisty, turny mystery with a VERY surprise ending. Nothing like a load of small-town unpleasantness to keep us awake at night!
What starts as a simple story of a kidnapped teen becomes much more complicated as multiple underlying storylines surface outing secrets of all the characters involved. Kudos to the author for weaving a delightfully complicated story to bring hours of entertainment as you untwist the secrets and lies to figure out who the kidnapper is and where the teen is located. I’m quite looking firward to more books from this author!
A sad commentary on children and mental illness
Interesting fun read. Had me wanting to find more time to read it
Intriguing concept but disappointing execution. The description of a disappearance in a harbor town with secrets drew me in. The autistic grandson of the town founders has disappeared as a festival is about to begin. Intermixed with secrets about the family, are a demand for a ransom, anonymous texts, and a struggling recreational marijuana shop. Instead of an atmospheric suspense that held my interest, the story lacked a good send-off, got tangled up in too many characters and their backgrounds, and ended unremarkably for an end with a twist.