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A Small Town

Thomas Perry
Chapters (44)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Thomas Perry
  3. THOMAS PERRY
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
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  18. 13
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  32. 27
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  36. 31
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  38. 33
  39. 34
  40. 35
  41. 36
  42. 37
  43. 38
  44. Back Cover

Cover

cover

Also by Thomas Perry

Also by Thomas Perry

The Butcher’s Boy

Metzger’s Dog

Big Fish

Island

Sleeping Dogs

Vanishing Act

Dance for the Dead

Shadow Woman

The Face-Changers

Blood Money

Death Benefits

Pursuit

Dead Aim

Nightlife

Silence

Fidelity

Runner

Strip

The Informant

Poison Flower

The Boyfriend

A String of Beads

Forty Thieves

The Old Man

The Bomb Maker

The Burglar

THOMAS PERRY

A SMALL TOWN

A NOVEL

Copyright

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Perry

Cover design by Daniel Rembert

Cover collage: town, Feifei Cui-Paoluzzo/Getty;

background, Jonhy Blaze/Getty

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011, or [email protected].

Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in Canada

This book is set in 13-point Arno Pro by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH

First Grove Atlantic edition: January 2020

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-8021-4806-3

eISBN 978-0-8021-4807-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

The Mysterious Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

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Dedication

To my wife, Jo

1

As Beth Tiedemann packed Jack’s lunch, she occasionally looked up from the kitchen counter and out the window at the town. Most of the important parts of it just peeked up above the roofs of the small two-story houses like theirs. She could see the spires of the five churches—Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist—all lined up on the circular drive around the city park, and the old Tivoli movie theater, tall because it had a loge level high in the back where high school couples like her and Jack used to sit and misbehave. It wasn’t the sort of thing that she’d heard kids did now. That was still a time when a lot of people in town got married so they could have sex. She and Jack hadn’t been that way, but there wasn’t much indoor privacy available. She could also see the upper levels of the Holiday Inn outside town and the tower of city hall right in the center, but those were partially obscured by the thick summer foliage of the big trees along the parkway.