Farmington River

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Half the fun of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Farmington River</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is getting to know the quirks of the characters who inhabit Avon Old Farms and Ethel Walker schools. There's the cranky headmaster whose favorite pastime is bedding his students' mothers; the Cuban soccer coach who sees all and speaks his mind; the wisecracking boys at Avon; the best friends at Walker's who finish each other's sentences and know more than they wish they did; Sam Field the young teacher coach and amateur sleuth trying to stay professional despite the overtures of an alluring Walker's student; the closeted Avon boy who wants to drop sports in favor of theater against the will of the headmaster and his own mother; and the retired detective Jacqueline Spellmeyer whose painstaking work puts local police to shame.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A Walker's girl Mallory Harding has gone missing but there's no body no motive no trail of evidence. A potential suspect is her boyfriend an Avon day student and baseball prospect who internalizes the insecurities of his working-class parents--but no one can pin anything on him.</span></p><p><br></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Farmington River</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> also features ruminations on rivers rain and empty parking lots; mystical encounters with a missing poster; literate but melancholy journal entries by an unnamed author; and a tender love scene in a car in the pouring rain between Sam and his ex-girlfriend who listens to his story of his encounters with Mallory's poster and offers a reason her spirit singled him out for help. </span></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>