The lives of three individuals, including the wife of a prominent businessman who is having an affair, a street hustler seeking to right an injustice and a serial killer called Babysitter, intersect in a Detroit suburb in the 1970s.
"In the waning days of the 1970s, the lives of several residents of Detroit and its affluent white suburbs are drawn together following the disappearance of yet another child. Hannah, a wife and mother, begins an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger; Mikey, a young street hustler, finds himself on an unexpected mission to rectify injustice; and then there's the child serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and elusive figure at the periphery of elite Detroit, who has always been impossible to identify and immune to retribution. As Babysitter continues to strike-sending the city and its surroundings into pandemonium-these characters intersect, jeopardize one another, and are pushed to their limits. Suspenseful, brilliant, and wholly engrossing, Babysitter asks what we would risk for a chance at a new life, and how to protect all we cherish most. A scathing indictment of the corrupt politics, unexamined racism, and sexual predation in America, Babysitter is a thrilling novel and an absolute force"--
From one of America’s most renowned storytellers—the best-selling author of Blonde—comes a novel about love and deceit, and lust and redemption, against a backdrop of shocking murders in the affluent suburbs of Detroit.“Unsettling, mysterious, deft, sinister, eerily plausible.” —Margaret Atwood, best-selling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments, via TwitterIn the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved child-killings that have shocked Detroit, the lives of several residents are drawn together with tragic consequences.There is Hannah, wife of a prominent local businessman, who has begun an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger whose identity remains elusive; Mikey, a canny street hustler who finds himself on a chilling mission to rectify injustice; and the serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and terrifying figure at the periphery of elite Detroit. As Babysitter continues his rampage of abductions and killings, these individuals intersect with one another in startling and unexpected ways.Suspenseful, brilliantly orchestrated, and engrossing, Babysitter is a starkly narrated exploration of the riskiness of pursuing alternate lives, calling into question how far we are willing to go to protect those whom we cherish most. In its scathing indictment of corrupt politics, unexamined racism, and the enabling of sexual predation in America, Babysitter is a thrilling work of contemporary fiction.