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    The Cloud of Unknowing
    The Cloud of Unknowing
    The Cloud of Unknowing
    Ebook315 pages3 hours

    The Cloud of Unknowing

    By Thomas H. Cook

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A “gripping” mystery revolving around a family tragedy, and a woman who may or may not be descending into madness, by the Edgar Award–winning author (Entertainment Weekly).

    David Sears grew up terrorized by the ravings of his schizophrenic father, a frustrated literary genius who openly preferred David’s sister, Diana, for her superior intelligence. When the old man died, David thought the madness had finally left with him. But the Sears family was not through with its troubles.

    The drowning of Diana’s mentally ill son was ruled a tragic “misadventure,” but she believes other factors were at play. After hastily divorcing her husband, she sets out to prove his guilt. Her increasingly manic behavior is becoming hard for David to ignore. He finds himself afraid for his own family’s safety—and must choose his words carefully when answering the detective . . .

    Thomas H. Cook explores the power of blood to define us, bind us, and sometimes destroy us, in a novel of “consuming suspense almost too concentrated to bear” (Daily News, New York).

    “So spare and precise, it feels as if it has been chiseled in stone with something like a surgical instrument.” —Joyce Carol Oates

    “What’s at stake isn’t so much the resolution of a mystery as the integrity of a family.” —Time Out New York

    “[An] unusual, chilling mystery . . . Cook reveals all the pieces of the shocking story with an absolutely steady hand.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMysteriousPress.com Open Road
    Release dateFeb 13, 2024
    ISBN9781504093903
    Author

    Thomas H. Cook

    Thomas H. Cook is the author of twenty-three books, including The Chatham School Affair, which won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel, and, most recently, The Last Talk with Lola Faye.

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    Reviews for The Cloud of Unknowing

    3.5/5

    68 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this psychological drama of madness, obsession, and family secrets. I will definitely read more books from this author.
    • 4/5
      A lawyer is questioned by a detective about a crime which is unclear at first. In a family riddled with paranoid schizophrenia, Dave has watched his father be committed twice and die at home under the care of his sister, and then his young nephew deteriorate and drown in the family's pond. The sister is convinced her husband killed the boy and proceeds, in a downward spiral, to try to prove it, even as she begins to exhibit their father's paranoia. As Dave is questioned, the consequences of these actions, and Dave's part in the tragedy which ensues, are slowly revealed in a tense story which is extremely hard to put down.
    • 5/5
      The Murmur of Stones is the gripping story of a woman who begins to suspect that her husband drowned their schizophrenic son. Her father was paranoid schizophrenic, is she too? The story is told by her brother, who it seems has escaped the family curse. I loved this book. Both the way the story was told and the shifting sands of the story itself. Who was murdered...and by whom? And how many deaths were there...3 or 4? On the last page we find out there were 3 deaths, the final victim will survive. One death was murder for sure, one suicide...but was she given any other choice, and one...was it deliberate murder or a death by misadventure?
    • 3/5
      Murder, schizophrenia interwoven in a family story about how the past forms our present. Interesting if sort of predictable and somewhat confusing.
    • 5/5
      Wow. Every book by Thomas H. Cook has that same, inexorable quality to it; but played out in a different way each time. This is the best mystery novel I've read this year.
    • 4/5
      The Cloud of Unknowing (also the Murmur of Stones) by Thomas H. Cook is a 2007 Publisher’s Weekly Best Mystery. Cook is a favorite author of mine, so I was looking forward to reading this book.David and Diana are brother and sister whose father had schizophrenia. Diana’s son has recently drowned, and her behavior is becoming more and more erratic. She starts researching about strange ancient murders and starts suspecting her husband in their son’s death. David is worried that she is starting to develop schizophrenia as well. He even begins to wonder if he should put her away for her own good. Was Diana’s son murdered or was it an accident?I was a little disappointed in this book. My two favorites of his are Breakheart Hill and the Edgar-winning The Chatham School Affair. If you’ve never read Cook before, I suggest you start with one of those two.

    Book preview

    The Cloud of Unknowing - Thomas H. Cook

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