This is a little bit like “Pleasantville” (or the Stepford Wives) meets “The XFiles” plus a police procedural with a touch of Horror. Hard to classify.
Mona Bright is a troubled ex-cop who inherits her long dead mother’s home in Wink, New Mexico. She doesn’t know much about her mom – mental illness, suicide, not much more. Mom died a long time ago and the house only reverted to Mona after her fathers death. Turns out, that her mom used to work at the quantum research lab just outside of Wink. Quantum lab. Mysterious town. Quirky people. Mysterious deaths and stuff. Hmmm. Okay.
From the outside, Wink seems like the perfect town, perfect houses, perfect lawns, perfect people…Ozzie and Harriet. Ok maybe not so much. People in Wink are, well… hmm… quirky. There are certain things you don’t do in Wink, such go outside at night. Or look at the moon too long because you are never quite sure which moon in which dimension you might be looking at. Sometimes time doesn’t quite behave…normally. And you never ever go into the woods because…things. Things are there of which the townspeople do not speak.
Mona arrives in time for a funeral – which may or may not have been a murder. Soon enough there is another murder. Mona gets to use her investigative expertise to try to figure out what the heck is going on in this weird little town. This is big book and it does take a bit of time to unwind, but thats ok. A bit creepy, science fiction, murder mystery….spanning pan-dimensional reality with tentacles. Also rabbit skulls as murder weapons. But you really need to read the book.
Wow. As a horror/sci fi/science geek New Mexican, I am intrigued!