From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Set in the mid '60s, Roy's outstanding debut melds strong characters and an engrossing plot with an evocative sense of place. When Negro boys start phoning Elaine, Arthur Scott's teenage daughter, Arthur decides it's time to leave Detroit and return to the small Kansas town that he left 20 years earlier after his sister Eve's mysterious death. His wife, Celia, resents the move that will put her close to in-laws she barely knows and that will change her family dynamic. That Arthur's younger daughter, Eve-ee, resembles her late aunt unsettles Arthur's older sister, Ruth, and Ruth's husband, Ray, who have never seen Eve-ee before. When a neighbor's child disappears, suspicion uncomfortably settles on Ray, who was suspected in Eve's death. Roy couples a vivid view of the isolation and harshness of farm life with a perceptive look at the emotions that can rage beneath the surface. This Midwestern noir with gothic undertones is sure to make several 2011 must-read lists. (Apr.)
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Review

''_Bent Road_ is a remarkably assured debut novel. Rich and evocative, Lori Roy's voice is a welcome addition to American fiction.'' --Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island

''In her promising debut novel Bent Road, Lori Roy proves that dark secrets hide even in the most wide-open places. Set in the beautifully rendered Kansas plains, Bent Road is a family story with a suspenseful gothic core, one which shows that the past always has a price, whether you're running from it or back toward it. Crisp, evocative prose, full-blooded characters, and a haunting setting make this debut stand out.'' --Michael Koryta, author of Tonight I Said Goodbye

''Dropping us in a world of seeming simplicity, in a time of seeming calm, Lori Roy transforms 1960s small-town Kansas into a haunting memoryscape. Bringing to mind the family horrors of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres and the dark emotional terrain of Tana French's In the Woods, Bent Road manages to be both psychologically acute and breathtakingly suspenseful, burrowing into your brain with a feverish power all its own.'' --Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning novelist