Richard doesn't have a past.

For him, there is only the present: a new marriage to Tamara, a first chance at fatherhood to her son, Elijah, and a quiet but pleasant life as an art teacher at Elijah's elementary school in Danvers, Virginia. Then the body of a rabbit, ritualistically murdered, appears on the school grounds with a birthday card for Richard tucked beneath it. Richard doesn't have a birthday--but Sean does...

Sean is a five-year-old boy

who has just moved to Greenfield, Virginia, with his mother. Like most mothers of the 1980s, she's worried about bills, childcare, putting food on the table...and an encroaching threat to American life that can take the face of anyone: a politician, a friendly neighbor, or even a teacher. When Sean's school sends a letter to parents revealing that Sean's favorite teacher is under investigation, a white lie from Sean lights a fire that engulfs the entire nation--and Sean and his mother are left holding the match.

Now, thirty years later,

someone is here to remind Richard that they remember what Sean did. And though Sean doesn't exist anymore, someone needs to pay the price for his lies.

Reproduced from jacket text

Whisper Down the Lane

©2021 by Clay McLeod Chapman

Quirk Books