From Away Book

David Carkeet's previous novels have been covered in glory by critics and gained him a loyal following, but in From Away he has created a masterpiece-a brilliant comic novel that is also a finely wrought mystery.

Denny Braintree, a wisecracking loner devoted to model trains, finds himself stranded in late-winter Vermont. His night at the hotel begins with promise, but then his prospective one-night stand walks out on him. Leaving town, Denny is mistaken for look-a-like Homer Dumpling, a popular native son who mysteriously disappeared from town three years earlier. Instead of correcting the mistake, Denny dons his new identity as easily as a Vermonter's winter fleece, and a good thing too-the woman he had hoped to sleep with has turned up dead, and Denny is the chief suspect.

As Denny tries to unravel the mystery, he struggles to hide his true identity from Homer's increasingly suspicious circle of family and friends, including Homer's prickly girlfriend. In Denny, Carkeet has crafted a fast- talking bumbler whose instinct for survival will face the ultimate challenge, with readers cheering him on all the way..

The Barnes & Noble Review

When it's no longer an option to be yourself, why not slip into somebody else's welcoming costume, especially when those who ought to know the truth either look the other way or tacitly approve? In examining these behavioral quirks, David Carkeet digs deep into unsettling territory that even the most hard-boiled of crime novels wouldn't dare touch. Affability, it turns out, is the most dangerous trait of all.