NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A literary crime thriller with a clever plot that always surprises, told with dark humor and dry wit (The New York Times Book Review, Editors Choice), this brilliant debut follows a famous author whose wife--the brains behind his success--meets an untimely death, leaving him to deal with the consequences. Henry Hayden seems like someone you might admire, or even come to think of as a friend. A famous bestselling author. A loving and devoted husband. A generous and considerate neighbor. But Henry Hayden is a construction, a mask. His past is a secret, his methods more so. Only he and his wife know that she is the actual writer of the novels that made him famous. When his hidden-in-plain-sight mistress becomes pregnant, it seems his carefully conceived facade is about to crumble. And on a rain-soaked night at the edge of a dangerous cliff, his permanent solution becomes his most terrible mistake. Now not only are the police after Henry but his past--which he has painstakingly kept hidden--threatens to catch up with him as well. Henry is an ingenious man, and he works out an ingenious plan, weaving lies, truths, and half-truths into a story that might help him survive. Still, the noose tightens. Smart, sardonic, and compulsively readable, this is the story of a man whose cunning allows him to evade the consequences of his every action, even when hes standing on the edge of the abyss.