Anxiety of Ghosts
The boy in the hoodie lowered the gun barrel until it was touching Vanessa's head. All she wanted was to be swallowed by the earth, to disappear and be forgotten . . .
Dead of winter, northern Ohio. Vanessa Wilcox drops out of college to care for her bed-ridden father and keep her parents' diner afloat. It's a life she longs to escape.
Suddenly, she's thrust into a violent hostage situation, along with John Danvers, a troubled, older man with severe OCD. The bloody incident forges a strange bond between the two, leading them to investigate a teenage girl's long-forgotten disappearance.
The missing girl's disturbed father is convinced she's been killed and that Danvers can communicate with her spirit, and he'll stop at nothing to avenge her death.
To solve the crime, Vanessa navigates a maze of frozen landscapes, repossessed houses and family secrets. She must tread a dangerous line between madness and truth, to find whether there is a murderer in her neighbourhood or just an anxiety of ghosts . . .
Anxiety of Ghosts is a haunting portrait of violence and loss, of the dreams we leave behind and the ghosts that follow us.