Quiet dell : a novel / Jayne Anne Phillips.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From one of America's most accomplished and acclaimed fiction writers, a chilling, spectacularly riveting novel based on a real life multiple murder by a con man who preyed on widows--a story that has haunted Jayne Anne Phillips for more than four decades.

From one of America's most accomplished and acclaimed fiction writers, a spectacularly riveting novel based on a real-life multiple murder by a con man who preyed on widows-- a story that has haunted Jayne Anne Phillips for more than four decades

In Chicago in 1931, Asta Eicher, mother of three, is lonely and despairing, pressed for money after the sudden death of her husband. She begins to receive seductive letters from a chivalrous, elegant man named Harry Powers, who promises to cherish and protect her, ultimately to marry her and to care for her and her children. Weeks later, all four Eichers are dead.

Emily Thornhill, one of the few women journalists in the Chicago press, becomes deeply invested in understanding what happened to this beautiful family, particularly to the youngest child, Annabel, an enchanting girl with a precocious imagination and sense of magic. Bold and intrepid, Emily allies herself with a banker who is wracked by guilt for not saving Asta. Emily goes to West Virginia to cover the murder trial and to investigate the story herself, accompanied by a charming and unconventional photographer who is equally drawn to the case.

Driven by secrets of their own, the heroic characters in this magnificent tale will stop at nothing to ensure that Powers is convicted. Mesmerizing and deeply moving, Quiet Dell is a tragedy, a love story, and a tour de force of obsession and imagination from one of America's most celebrated writers.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This new title from Phillips, author of the National Book Award finalist Lark and Termite, reimagines the real-life murders of widow Asta Eicher and her three young children in 1931 Illinois. But this is not your standard crime fiction. The first third of the book introduces readers to the Eichers in the months leading up to their deaths, which helps to explain why Mrs. Eicher is desperate enough to exchange letters with complete stranger Harry Powers and then makes plans to marry him. The story then switches to the perspective of Emily Thornhill, a bright young reporter from the Chicago Tribune. The murders are not described in great detail; the narrative focuses on Emily's investigative reporting and the eventual trial of Harry Powers, who is accused of the killings. VERDICT For readers intrigued by the story line and not already familiar with the Quiet Dell murders, this work is an excellent introduction. It serves more broadly as a compelling and touching novel, particularly for anyone interested in true crime fiction, investigative reporting, and Depression-era settings. [See Prepub Alert, 4/29/13.]-Shaunna E. Hunter, Hampden-Sydney Coll. Lib., VA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

At the core of this sprawling new novel from the author of Lark and Termite is a series of real-life murders committed in 1931. A man calling himself Cornelius O. Pierson woos Asta Eicher, mother of three and recently widowed, in polished letters promising fidelity and financial security. After Asta disappears with Pierson, aka Harry Powers, the killer returns to Asta's home in Chicago to kidnap and brutally murder her three beautiful children. In Phillips's retelling, Emily Thornhill, a lovely staff writer for the Chicago Tribune, covers the case with her photographer colleague, Eric Lindstrom, and the Eicher family dog, Duty. She falls in love with the Eicher family banker, William Malone, who bankrolls much of the investigation, but she also becomes enthralled with the memory of the three dead children: simple Grethe; her brave brother, Hart; and their precocious little sister, Annabel. Phillips's plot is engaging, romantic, and fecund; her characters are beautiful, accomplished, and good-except for the bad guy, who is very bad indeed. The book veers dangerously close to melodrama, and the story drags when trying to stick too closely to the truth, but Phillips is a reader's writer. For every tedious page of the murder trial, mired in the story-lethal muck of facts, there is one of soaring lyricism. The best bits are Phillips's recreation of her characters' dreams, and especially the ethereal afterlife of the enchanting young Annabel, who is only nine when she is killed in a muddy field in Quiet Dell, W.Va. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Phillips, the much-awarded and deeply admired writer of such fiction as Black Tickets (1979) and Machine Dreams (1984), now presents an astonishingly effective novel based on a true crime that took place in her native West Virginia in the early 1930s, material that has been brewing in her consciousness for years. The facts in the case are startling. Asta Eicher is a struggling widow in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge and the mother of three children. A man calling himself Cornelius Pierson blows into Asta's life, and Asta entrusts herself and her family into this virtual stranger's care, moving to Quiet Dell, West Virginia. Soon the Eichers are discovered murdered. Emily Thornhill, a distinguished reporter for the Chicago Tribune, has been asked to investigate by the president of the Park Ridge First National Bank, who managed Asta's meager finances. Emily thus travels to Quiet Dell, one character remarking, This story will be dark. Around a core of real people and events, Phillips has indeed drawn a sad yet irresistible story of the defenseless victims of a serial murderer who possesses the lack of conscience so often true to his kind. In fact, the truth of all of Phillips' characterizations is what lies behind this careful novel's compelling momentum. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A national print, TV, and radio publicity campaign will be carried out by the publisher, which will also provide an online reading-group guide, and the author will complete a multicity tour.--Hooper, Brad Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Phillips (Lark and Termite, 2009) fuses the established facts surrounding the 1931 trial of serial killer Harry Powers with her imagined version of the victims' inner lives and the fictional lives of a handful of characters connected by the crimes. Financially strapped since her husband's death, Asta Eicher lives with her three children in a large suburban Chicago house where she takes in boarders. Devoted to her and the children, former boarder Charles O'Boyle, who has prospered in his business, proposes to Asta while celebrating a joyful Christmas with the family in 1930. Aware he is gay, she turns him down. Instead, she assumes she will solve her problems by marrying Cornelius Pierson, with whom she's secretly begun corresponding through the American Friendship Society (think snail-mail Match.com). In July 1931, Asta leaves her children with a babysitter while she travels with Cornelius to set up the family's new home. A week later, Cornelius returns alone to fetch the kids. Phillips brings the Eichers to vivid life--Asta's guilts, 14-year-old Grethe's innocence, 12-year-old Hart's protectiveness, 9-year-old Annabel's spirit--and wisely eschews the grisly details of their deaths. Months later, the police discover the Eichers' remains in the basement of a garage belonging to Harry Powers in Quiet Dell, W.V. Charged with the Eichers' murders, Powers is indicted for the murder of Dorothy Lemke, whose body has also been discovered in the garage, because the circumstantial evidence in her case is stronger. The snippets of actual court testimony and reportage included are harrowing. While digging up dirt on Powers, (fictional) Chicago Tribune reporter Emily Thornhill falls deeply in love with Asta's (real-life) banker. She also takes in an orphaned street urchin. So in the aftermath of one family's destruction, Emily creates a new if unconventional "family" of people she loves. Phillips' prose is as haunting as the questions she raises about the natures of sin, evil and grace.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.