Henry Franks: A Novel by Peter Adam SalomonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have been an avid reader of mysteries for five decades, working diligently to piece out clues, marveling when authors don’t telegraph ahead of time, and I can truthfully say I came to only a tentative conclusion about this story, and that was quite a way into it! So author Peter Adam Salomon has done a really excellent job of interweaving the characters, plotting, backdrop, and settings in this story, never allowing any information too early.
At sixteen, Henry Franks has no memory beyond a year earlier. He remembers the present, but nothing before what his father has informed him was a vehicular accident in which Henry was injured quite badly and his mother killed. Henry knows he has scars, he has pain, he has numbness, and he is an outcast, a pariah, at high school in Brunswick, Georgia. His only friend is his next-door neighbor on St. Simons Island, Justine. His father, William Franks, works in the morgue at the Regional Psychiatric Hospital nearby. Life is mostly a mystery to Henry, and his father has become increasingly estranged. Henry’s psychiatrist, Dr. Seville, reassures him memory recovery is a process, but why, after a year, has there been no progress?
This is only the surface story; as the friendship between Henry and Justine intensifies, as Henry’s emotions mature, and as a violent hurricane approaches the Georgia coast, so too do events intensify, including multiple unexplained murders. Readers will marvel at the denouements, and be thankful they picked up “Henry Franks.”
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