After the End

Abstract

After the End is an original mystery novel set in Pious Pointe, a small Catholic town where life seems peaceful in the spring of 1973. However, the novel’s two principal characters: Alan Blackcloud, the story’s narrator and a burnt-out history teacher with a shadowy past, and Mary McFadden, his lackluster student, are about to realize how important they are to each other. Mary is hardly the poster child for a teenage sleuth. She’s struggled to find motivation to do anything since her brother was declared Missing in Action in Vietnam, and Bea, the school brainiac, is her last remaining friend. Yet when Alan is murdered and the scene is staged to make the death appear to be a suicide, Mary is the only person who senses that something isn’t right. For the first time in months, she feels a spark of excitement. As Alan watches from beyond the grave, Mary and Bea begin an investigation, and as the girls come closer to Alan’s killer, they uncover secrets about a mysterious disappearance decades earlier. Perhaps Pious Pointe is not as charming as it seems. After the End explores themes of grief, justice, religion, and the question of what we owe one another. In life, Alan and Mary mean almost nothing to one another, but death shows each character the profound impact each has on the other.