by Julia Keller
In
the next powerful mystery from Julia Keller, a murder investigation leads West
Virginia prosecuting attorney Bell Elkins to the shattering truth about her own
past.
Based
on a real-life event, Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Keller’s latest Bell Elkins
novel Fast Falls the Night takes place in a single 24-hour period, unfurling
against the backdrop of a shattering personal revelation that will change
Bell’s life forever.
The
first drug overdose comes just after midnight, when a young woman dies on the
dirty floor of a gas station bathroom. To the people of the small town of
Acker’s Gap, West Virginia, it is just another tragedy. It is sad―but these
days, depressingly familiar.
But
then there is another overdose. And another. And another.
Prosecutor Bell Elkins soon realizes that her
Appalachian hometown is facing its starkest challenge yet: a day of constant
heroin overdoses from a batch tainted with a lethal tranquilizer. While the
clock ticks and the bodies fall, Bell and her colleagues desperately track the
source of the deadly drug―and engage in fierce debates over the wisdom of
expending precious resources to save the lives of self-destructive addicts.