an auspicious debut novel by a young writer who will remind readers of anne lamott and anne tylercrime in the neighborhood centers on a headline event the molestation and murder of a twelveyearold boy in a washington dc suburb at the time of the murder 1973 marsha was nine years old and as an adult she still remembers that summer as a time when murder and her own familys upheaval were intertwined everyone it seemed to marsha at the time was committing crimes her father deserted his family to take up with her mothers younger sister her teenage brother and sister were smoking and shoplifting and her mother was flirting with mr green the new nextdoor neighbor even the president of the united states seemed to be a crook but it is marshas own suspicions about who committed this crime that has the town up in arms and reveals what happens when fear runs wild