The Waters & the Wild

Daniel Abend is a single parent in New York City, with a successful therapy practice and a comfortable life: an apartment on the Upper West Side, a teenage daughter, a peaceful daily routine. When one of his patients commits suicide, it is a tragedy, but one easily explained: The young woman suffered from depression and drug addiction. But soon after, Daniel receives an ominous note that makes him question the circumstances surrounding his patient´s death. He is provided with a provocative series of clues--a mysterious key, a cryptic poem, a photograph with a chilling message. A few days later, his daughter abruptly disappears. Daniel is swept into an increasingly desperate search for his daughter, and for the truth--a search that stretches back decades, to when he was a young man living in Paris, falling in love with a woman who would ultimately upend his life. As he is tormented by a steady flow of anonymous letters, Daniel recognizes that he must confront the secrets of his past: There is a debt to be paid, an account to be settled. Advance praise for The Waters & The Wild "Elegant, elegiac, enigmatic: three words to describe The Waters & The Wild. DeSales Harrison crafts a series of intricate psychological layers that blur the lines between what is past and present, real and unreal. This is a compelling debut that is equal parts character study and literary labyrinth."--Matthew Pearl, New York Times bestselling author of The Dante Club and The Last Bookaneer "A cryptic, beguiling puzzle-box of a book, The Waters & The Wild is chilling in its acuity and deep in its sorrows--a mesmeric exploration of guilt in the vein of Vertigo or The Secret History, with the frantic nightmare-logic of a thriller."--David Gilbert, author of & Sons