Girl in the Dark - Softcover

A single mother and lawyer, Iris has a demanding boss, a young son with behavior issues, and a judgmental, aloof mother. Though she loves her son, Aaron, fiercely, she despairs over his intense outbursts.

One thing that keeps Aaron calm is the large aquarium in Iris’s mother’s home. Iris has never understood why Agatha, usually so detached, would keep an oversize tank filled with exotic tropical fish. Her mother won’t say—until an incident involving one of the fish leads Iris to make a shocking discovery.

She has an older brother. His name is Ray.

Why did her mother hide Ray’s existence from her? Curious about this sibling she has never known, Iris begins to search for long-buried truths. What she learns surprises—and horrifies—her. Her older brother is autistic—and in a hospital for the criminally insane for brutally murdering his neighbor and her little girl.

When she meets Ray, she meets a man who looks heartbreakingly like her own son. There is no question that Ray is odd and obsessive, unable to communicate like the rest of us. But is he really a killer—a beast who committed a brutal murder because of a broken heart?

Marion Pauw is a thriller writer living in Amsterdam. In the Netherlands, Girl in the Dark won the Golden Noose Award—the annual award for the best Dutch crime novel—under the title Daglicht (Daylight), and has sold more than 200,000 copies in Europe. It was also made into an acclaimed Dutch film. Girl in the Dark is Pauw’s American debut.