Critically acclaimed author Joseph Olshan will read from, discuss and sign his new literary mystery, “Black Diamond Fall,” on the day it is released. The Vermont author will appear a the Vermont Book Shop on Main Street in Middlebury on Tuesday, Sept. 18, at 7 p.m. to discuss this new work with strong local connections. “Black Diamond Fall” is described as a rich, literary mystery based and united by two real events that occurred at Middlebury College: the disappearance of a student during winter break, and the vandalism of the Robert Frost cabin.
Here’s the basic outline: Luc Flanders has just finished playing a game of pond hockey with his college roommates when he realizes he has lost something precious and goes back to the ice to find it. He never returns, and members of the Middlebury Police Department (the fictional ones, not the real people you see around town) are divided in their assessment of what may have happened to him. Some feel that Flanders left on his own accord and is deliberately out of touch. Others, including detectives Nick Jenkins and Helen Kennedy, suspect that harm may have come to him.
As the search for Luc Flanders widens and intensifies, suspicions about several different people, including his Middlebury College roommates and ex-girlfriend arise. Unfortunately, Sam Solomon an older man with whom Luc has been having a secret relationship, cannot prove his whereabouts during the hours when the younger man may have disappeared and Solomon, too, comes under suspicion. At the same time that Luc disappears, the Robert Frost cabin is vandalized (remember the real incident from 2008?) and there seems to be a link between the two events that the police are determined to discover. Alternating points of view between Luc Flanders, Sam Solomon, Luc’s mother and detective Nick Jenkins, “Black Diamond Fall” races to a disturbing and astonishing conclusion in a lush, literary mystery.
Olshan is the award-winning author of 10 novels including “Cloudland,” “Nightswimmer” and “The Conversion.” Check him out.