In this propulsive crime novel from Edgar Award nominee Ken Jaworowski, three lives collide in a gritty rust-belt town--a single mother covering up a deadly mistake, a young man on a mission to honor a dying wish, and a musician racing to escape a violent debt. Carla, a single mom poised to finally break free from her cycle of poverty, must risk it all, including her morality, to help her son hide a terrible secret. Reed, an autistic young man, sets out on a journey to keep a deathbed promise to the mother he just lost. Along the way he'll encounter both kindhearted residents and a cold-blooded nemesis. And Liz, an aspiring musician on the cusp of a breakthrough, needs to quickly come up with the cash she owes a brutal ex-con. If she can't pay him, both her dream and her life will be in grave danger. As these three compelling characters intersect, the novel ignites into a story filled with explosive twists, hair-raising chills, and boundless love.

What About the Bodies: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Jaworowski, Ken

Genre Fiction

Atlantic Crime

A story that focuses on life, death, and choice, draws together the lives of five seemingly disparate characters: A hard-driving businessman struggling to raise his grandson. A paroled convict hoping to find redemption. A shy college professor trying to win the approval of his students. A middle-aged office manager pressured to hide her secrets. And a haunted young man hungry for revenge. As their stories unfold in plots both tragic and comic, these desperate souls find themselves intertwined in each other's battles and dreams.“It’s a small world, and for the disparate and troubled characters in INTERCHANGE, Ken Jaworowski’s engrossing new play … their universe will be reduced to one degree of separation before the evening is done. In a series of 19 taut and well-constructed scenes, Mr Jaworowski plots the course of five seemingly unrelated lives that are gradually revealed to be closely interconnected and that will be irrevocably altered through circumstance and coincidence. In the poignant opening, a son tells his irascible father while on a fishing trip that his cancer is no longer in remission. The son, a single father of a seven-year-old, pleads with his dad to raise his grandson in kindness rather than anger. Other vignettes introduce a milquetoast economics professor who secretly pines for an English professor colleague; a former Wall Street trader just out of prison and desperate for a job; a middle-management executive under the thumb of her harridan of a boss; and a disturbed young man in a court-ordered counseling program bent on a private vendetta. As their stories unfold, each will face disillusion and disappointment as the thread that will ultimately bind them together becomes discernible. By the end, there will be heartache for some and hope for others. Along the way, each will learn that a little compassion can have resounding repercussions …” —Wilborn Hampton, The New York Times

Interchange

Dramas & Plays

Broadway Play Publishing, Incorporated

Ken Jaworowski's Small Town Sins is a gripping Rust Belt thriller that captures the characters of a down-and-out Pennsylvania town, revealing their troubled pasts and the crimes that could cost them their lives. In Locksburg, Pennsylvania, a former coal and steel town whose best days seem long past, five thousand residents have toughed it out, and have reasons for both worry and hope as this neglected place teeters between decay and renewal. For some of them, their biggest troubles have just arrived. After years of just scraping by, three restless souls have their lives upended: Nathan, a volunteer fireman who uncovers a secret stash of money in a burning building and takes it; Callie, a nurse whose tender patient may not have long to live, despite the girl's fundamentalist parents' ardent beliefs; and Andy, a recovering heroin addict who undertakes a nightmare mission to hunt down and stop a serial predator. Before long, Nathan's stolen riches threaten to destroy everyone around him as he tries to cover his haphazard trail of lies. Callie risks her career to grant her young patient a final, and likely illegal, wish. And Andy's hunger for vigilante justice becomes a fierce obsession that may end in violence. As their stories barrel toward unexpected ends, Nathan, Callie, and Andy struggle to endure--or escape. They each face their pasts and gamble on their futures, and confront the underside of their rough Rust Belt town. Riveting, evocative, and unforgettable, Small Town Sins is a debut novel that marks the arrival of a major new talent.

Small Town Sins: A Novel

Henry Holt and Co.

Small Town Sins

Holt Paperbacks

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