Daniel Hecht

Despite his brilliance, Paul Skoglund hasn't held a steady job for years, partly because of his Tourette's syndrome, a neurological disorder that forces his body into wild swings and to blurt out words that are hilariously, often tragically inappropriate. When his eccentric, wealthy aunt asks him to take on the repairs of her magnificent hunting lodge, he is in no position to refuse. But inside the lodge lies a scene of almost superhuman destruction:...

In a radical departure from her urban life, Ann Turner buys a piece of remote Vermont land and sets up a tent home in deep forest. She's trying to escape an unending string of personal disasters in Boston; more, she desperately wants to leave behind a world she sees as increasingly defined by consumerism, hypocrisy, and division. As she writes in her journal, "There's got to be a more honest, less divided way to live." She soon learns she was mistaken...

Cree is asked to help investigate a recently unearthed human skeleton—apparently a victim of the 1906 San Francicso earthquake—whose anatomical deformities have earned it the nickname Wolfman. Her research is illuminated by the 1889 diary of Lydia Schweitzer, a Victorian woman with her own secrets.