A Twisted Ladder

by Rhodi Hawk

Overview

Psychologist Madeleine LeBlanc has spent her whole career trying to determine the cause of her father's schizophrenia. She always felt that she could unravel its origins and cure the man who left her and her brother, Marc, to practically raise themselves on the Louisiana Bayou. But when Marc takes his own life on a fishing boat in the middle of Bayou Black, Madeleine embarks on a journey into her family history—-to a time when the antebellum era was crumbling, and the line between servant and master was starting to fade. And the more she pries the more she reveals her family's dark past, rife with conjured demons and river magic gone awry. Madeleine's only hope to save herself is to face the ghosts of the past, the dangers of the present, and the twisted ladder that links them all together.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765323736
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/01/2009
Series:	Devils of the Briar Series , #1
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 8.32(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

RHODI HAWK began her career as a transcription linguist in US Army intelligence and later worked as a technical writer during the Internet boom. In 2007, she won the International Thriller Writer's Scholarship for A Twisted Ladder, which is her first novel. She lives in the New York City area.

Editorial Reviews

A phenomenal novel, a thriller with characters that are intriguing and real, a sublime plot, and all the right ingredients. This is a fabulous first book from an author who knows how to tell a story. I see an incredible future for her.” —Heather Graham, New York Times bestselling author of The Death Dealer

“Eerie and evocative, A Twisted Ladder provides scares and surprises galore.” —Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Surgeon

“Rhodi Hawk has reshaped Southern Gothic and made it her own. Alternately lyrical and disturbing, majestic and profoundly creepy, A Twisted Ladder sings with an unabashed love of the South even while lifting its rocks to reveal the decay and darkness lurking beneath.” —F. Paul Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of the Reapirman Jack series

“Rhodi Hawk's A Twisted Ladder is a novel of great power, a nasty Southern genre twister with a full dose of dark and light presented to us in fine controlled prose. It has all the great elements of Southern literature, but still manages to be be hip and hot underneath those Southern shadows. I haven't been thisimpressed with a new writer in quite some time.” —Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar Award-winning author of The Bottoms

From the Publisher

Rhodi Hawk has reshaped Southern Gothic and made it her own. Alternately lyrical and disturbing, majestic and profoundly creepy, A Twisted Ladder sings with an unabashed love of the South even while lifting its rocks to reveal the decay and darkness lurking beneath.

New York Times bestselling author of the Reapirman F. Paul Wilson

A phenomenal novel, a thriller with characters that are intriguing and real, a sublime plot, and all the right ingredients. This is a fabulous first book from an author who knows how to tell a story. I see an incredible future for her.

New York Times bestselling author of The Death Dea Heather Graham

Hawk's promising debut, a Southern gothic thriller, introduces Dr. Madeleine LeBlanc, a staff psychologist at New Orleans's Tulane University with a special interest in cognitive schizophrenia. Maddy's father, “Daddy Blank,” suffers from the disease, as does her brother, Marc, whose suicide leads Maddy, who fears she may also be schizophrenic after psychic visits from a “devil-child,” to probe her family's past. Tulane neurologist Ethan Manderleigh provides support as terrible secrets surface about the family sugarcane plantation. Maddy's discovery that a creepy childhood friend is a murderer complicates her quest. Flashbacks to Prohibition-era New Orleans chart the early life of Maddy's clairvoyant, mean-spirited 114-year-old great-grandmother, Chloe, who's rather too spry for her age, despite her magical gifts. Voodoo and scientific research into neuroplasticity make an intriguing, if not always easy, mix. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly