Acclaimed author William Boyle, who has come to be known as the 'crime poet of Brooklyn', follows the lives of two sisters who become embroiled in an accidental murder and a well-planned cover-up.

'William Boyle’s best novel yet, a vibrant, operatic tale of two resilient, big-hearted sisters and the fateful night that sets their life on a path they never intended. Not since Richard Price has a writer brought New York to such vivid, spectacular life' Megan Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Beware the Woman

Gravesend, Brooklyn, 1986: Risa Franzone lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saint of the Narrows Street with her bad-seed husband, Saverio, and their eight-month-old baby, Fabrizio. Risa is a loving mother, a faithful wife, a saintly neighbour - but lately, her husband’s slow dive into criminality and abuse has threatened her peace, raising concerns about her and her baby’s safety.

On the night her younger sister, Giulia, moves in with Risa to recover from a bad break-up, a fateful accident occurs: Risa, boiled over with anger and fear, strikes a drunk, erratic Sav with a cast-iron pan, killing him on the spot.

The sisters are left with a choice: notify the authorities and make a case for selfdefense, or bury the man’s body and go on with their lives as best they can. In a moment of panic, in the late hours of the night, they call upon Sav’s childhood friend—the sweet, loyal Christopher “Chooch” Gardini—to help them, hoping they can trust him to carry a secret like this.

Over the vast, dramatic expanse of the next eighteen years, life goes on in the working-class Italian neighbourhood of Gravesend as Risa, Giulia, and Chooch grapple with the choice they made that night—and each forge a different path when the cracks of a supposedly seamless cover-up begin to reveal themselves.