A Second Look - Paperback

by Wendy S. Simons (Author)

What to believe can be as much about choice as reality. A Second Look is about the way two families and a community bear the weight of tragedy. A decade later, they face the unimaginable weight of new allegations. It begins in 1960 with the accidental drowning of two young boys. Peter's family moves forward. Tyler's family, already in crisis, implodes. A decade later, a new version of events challenges assumptions when an assistant district attorney trying to make a case in another state suggests there was a predator among them: A well-respected school principal. He's been accused of murdering her young nephew. No one imagined a pedophile in their midst until she comes looking for one. Then, it's all they can see. Her investigation fractures the foundation of how events are perceived, challenging every aspect of the original findings, revealing a conspiracy to bury the truth. Forty years after the loss, Tyler's sister tends their estranged mother as she dies. The relationship is difficult to navigate, each of them seeing only what they want to see, until in the end, they stumble upon a degree of reconciliation with each other and the past. A Second Look is a character driven narrative weaving three timelines together, skirting elusive truths within a fog of memory, the past maintaining a chokehold on the future. Everyone involved is haunted by a history unrelenting in its ability to lay guilt at their feet.