Dismantled: A Novel - Hardcover

McMahon, Jennifer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061689335 ISBN 13: 9780061689338

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2009

Synopsis

“An eerie and gripping tale of suspense….A triumph.”
—Boston Globe

A stunning and chilling thriller from the author of the New York Times bestseller Island of Lost Girls that further burnishes her reputation as "One of the brightest new stars of literary suspense" (Los Angeles Times online). 

When Henry, Tess, Winnie, and Suz form the Compassionate Dismantlers in college, the first rule of their manifesto is, "To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart." But their penchant for acts of meaningful vandalism and elaborate, often dangerous pranks results in Suz's death in the woods of Vermont—a tragedy the surviving Dismantlers decide to cover up.

Nearly a decade later, Henry and Tess are desperate to forget, but their guilt isn't ready to let them go. When a mysterious Dismantler-style postcard drives a past prank victim to suicide, it sets off a chain of terrifying events that threatens to tear apart their world and engulf their inquisitive nine-year-old daughter, Emma. Is there someone who wants to reveal their secrets? Or is it possible Suz has found a way to enact revenge?

Full of white-knuckle tension with deeply human characters caught in circumstances beyond their control, Jennifer McMahon's enthralling story proves that she is a master at weaving the fear of the supernatural with the stark realities of life.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Island of Lost Girls and Promise Not to Tell returns with a chilling novel in which the secrets of the past come back to haunt a group of friends in terrifying ways.

Dismantlement = Freedom

Henry, Tess, Winnie, and Suz banded together in college to form a group they called the Compassionate Dismantlers. Following the first rule of their manifesto—"To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart"—these daring misfits spend the summer after graduation in a remote cabin in the Vermont woods committing acts of meaningful vandalism and plotting elaborate, often dangerous, pranks. But everything changes when one particularly twisted experiment ends in Suz's death and the others decide to cover it up.

Nearly a decade later, Henry and Tess are living just an hour's drive from the old cabin. Each is desperate to move on from the summer of the Dismantlers, but their guilt isn't ready to let them go. When a victim of their past pranks commits suicide—apparently triggered by a mysterious Dismantler-style postcard—it sets off a chain of eerie events that threatens to engulf Henry, Tess, and their inquisitive nine-year-old daughter, Emma.

Is there someone who wants to reveal their secrets? Is it possible that Suz did not really die—or has she somehow found a way back to seek revenge?

Full of white-knuckle tension with deeply human characters caught in circumstances beyond their control, Jennifer McMahon's gripping story and spine-tingling plot prove that she is a master at weaving the fear of the supernatural with the stark realities of life.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dismantled

A NovelBy Jennifer McMahon

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Jennifer McMahon
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061689338

Chapter One

Present Day

"Dismantlement equals freedom."

Suz is there, whispering the words in his ear, each syllable hot and twisted. She's glowing, radiant, still twenty-one and burning with the fierce need to fuck up the world.

The dead don't age.

He finishes the knot, his hands steady, without the slightest tremble, then climbs onto the chair and throws the rope up over one of the beams in the kitchen. Old, hand-hewn beams his builder rescued from a salvage yard. They'd reminded him of Vermont. Of the cabin near the lake.

In his mind, he goes back ten years, sees Suz coming up the path, stepping into the clearing, pole in one hand, string of fish in the other: bass, sunfish, trout. They glisten like jewels, strung on the braided nylon rope she's carefully looped through their mouths and gills.

Suz's walk is a dance, her movements fluid, the silk tunic she wears flutters around her, making it seem as if the wind itself is carrying her, buoying her along like a kite.

She winks at him.

He loves her.

He hates her.

He doesn't want to be here, but there's no way he could ever leave. Once you're in her orbit, it's impossible to pull yourself away.

The others gather around as she lays the fish out on the table to clean them. She pulls the trout off the braided rope, lays it flat on newspaper, and slides the knife in, slitting it open along its belly from gills to vent. The fish opens its mouth, sucking at air. Suz smiles, showing crooked teeth, pushes her fingers gently inside the fish, widening the opening with her hand. The skin stretches; the movement of her fingers produces a wet, tearing sound.

"To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart," Suz says, tugging out a string of entrails, sticky and shimmering with rainbows, like oil on a puddle.

"You never really got it, did you, babycakes?" he hears her whisper in his ear.

"No," he tells her, slipping the rope around his neck, pulling the postcard from his pocket to look at one last time. "But I do now."

He steps off the chair.

The postcard falls from his hand, drifts to the floor in slow motion, turning: moose, words, moose, words—until it lands, the carefully printed words facing up, the last thing he sees before losing consciousness:

Continues...

Excerpted from Dismantledby Jennifer McMahon Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer McMahon. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061689335
• ISBN 13: 9780061689338
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 422