What if Sean Courtland’s old Chevy truck had broken down somewhere else? What if he’d never met Denise Givens, a waitress at a local tavern, and gotten into a bar fight defending her honor? Or offered a ride and a job to Dan Young, another young man like Sean, burdened by secrets and just drifting through town?

Instead, over the course of just a few short weeks, Sean and Dan form a deep friendship as they get drawn into the lives of the people they meet—from Denise and her father, to Marion Devereaux, who needs some work done on his house, to Corinne Viegas, a savvy detective with top-notch instincts—all haunted in different ways by the disappearance of three young boys decades ago, in the 1970s. And as these characters converge, an irreversible chain of events is set in motion that culminates in shattering violence, and the revelation of long-buried truths.

Evocative and gritty, Distant Sons is another immersive, gripping suspense novel by Johnston about how the most random intersection of lives can have consequences both devastating and beautiful.

Tim Johnston is the author of the novels Descent, The Current, the story collection Irish Girl, and the young adult novel Never So Green. He holds degrees from the University of Iowa and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the recipient of the 2015 Iowa Author Award and currently lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Livestream: Tim Johnston