Killingly
Katharine Beutner
ISBN: 9781641294379
Published: June 2023
Pricing
Hardcover $27.95
eBook $14.99
More books by Katharine Beutner
Description
Based on the unsolved real-life disappearance of a Mount Holyoke student in 1897—a haunting novel of intrigue, longing, and terror, perfect for fans of Donna Tartt and Sarah Waters
Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. One cold November morning the junior is spotted...
Based on the unsolved real-life disappearance of a Mount Holyoke student in 1897—a haunting novel of intrigue, longing, and terror, perfect for fans of Donna Tartt and Sarah Waters
Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. One cold November morning the junior is spotted walking through the Massachusetts woods; then, she vanishes.
As a search team dredges the pond where she might have drowned, Bertha’s panicked father and sister arrive at the campus desperate to find some clue as to her fate or state of mind. Bertha’s best friend, Agnes, a scholarly loner studying medicine, might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfully tightlipped, inciting the suspicions of Bertha’s family, her classmates, and the private investigator hired by the Mellish family doctor. As secrets from Agnes and Bertha’s lives come to light, so do the competing agendas driving each person who is searching for Bertha.
Where did Bertha go? Who would want to hurt her? And could she still be alive?
Edmund White Award-winning author Katharine Beutner crafts a real-life unsolved mystery into an immersive, unforgettable work of literary crime fiction—a beautifully drawn historical portrait of queerness, family trauma, and the risks faced by women who dared to pursue unconventional paths at the end of the 19th century.
Media
“Beutner uses [Bertha Melish's] disappearance as a wider set-piece to investigate the nature of those who stand apart from the crowd, and are punished for their independence.”
—CrimeReads
“Beutner is masterful at depicting the intrigue and innuendo of a women’s college. With perfect pacing, she drops casual revelations that grow increasingly shocking as the pages turn.”
—The Akron Beacon Journal
“Killingly moves deliberately, achingly, through one young woman’s disappearance in 1897. Out of the real-life facts of the case, Katharine Beutner makes extraordinary fiction, pushing against the limits of her characters’ situations and propelling us to the heights of their ambitions. Beutner’s novel is able to discover an answer to Bertha Mellish’s mystery. Now, more than ever, we need to know the truth this story reveals.”
—Julia Phillips, author of National Book Award Finalist Disappearing Earth
“Katharine Beutner has spun a lost scrap of history into a campus mystery novel set in the late 1800s, when an elite women’s college is consumed by the search for a missing student. Gossip and clues to her whereabouts—or her death—fester with accusation and suspicion. In their longing to find the beloved young woman, her best friend Agnes and her older sister Florence must each grapple with their own dangerous secrets. A story of women who defy strict rules, Killingly is a gripping novel of intrigue and surprising twists.”
—Kate Manning, author of My Notorious Life
“This is a superb novel, suffused with dread, riddled with covert motivations and desires, reckoning with painful secrets, artfully rendering the myriad facets of this mysterious case while bearing witness to the sacrifices many women have made to live—and die—authentically.”
—Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Dog of the North and The Portable Veblen
“SARAH WATERS AND DONNA TARTT SQUAD, BUCKLE UP: Killingly, the latest from Katharine Beutner, is hitting the Plain Bad Heroines place in my heart again.”
—Autostraddle
“Startling.”
—WAMC The Roundtable
“The storyline will keep you guessing and engaged as it also deals with issues still in the news today. I predict this mystery will be in a lot of beach bags this summer.”