Praise for The Confession

Also from Domenic Stansberry: The Confession—an Edgar Award winning psychological thriller. Now available in e-book from Molotov Editions.

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“In the literary tradition of The Killer Inside Me, and every bit as powerful. Stansberry is an extraordinarily evocative writer.” George Pelecanos, Writer/Producer The Wire, author The Double

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“A CLASSIC.” January Magazine

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“Compelling . . . Fascinating . . . Industrial strength neo-noir.” Publishers Weekly

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“Stansberry is a hard-hitting, uncompromising writer. . . . A masterful novel by a (heretofore) underappreciated master of the genre. Very highly recommended.” Bookreporter.com

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“Fabulous writing, excellent pace and a thoroughly unnerving . . . sticks in your craw, your brain and your gut for a very long time. No question: Stansberry is one of the genre's best writers. ” Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, Sarah Weinman.

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“Stansberry's book is remarkable in the way that it draws us into sympathy with Danser, even as we see his weaknesses. He's not a hero, we can't even be sure he's not guilty, but he is awfully interesting. You'd have him over for dinner, as long as he stayed on his side of the table.” BleekerBooks

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“This first-person account will give you goose-bumps for days. . . . Chilling ending.” Bookblog, Vivian Lake

THE CONFESSION

By Domenic Stansberry

Preface

SOMETIMES, I CLOSE MY EYES and imagine myself at the top of Mt. Tamalpais, the jagged peak that overlooks Marin. The weather is temperate one moment, unruly and fog-driven the next. The wind blows through me as if I don’t exist. There are rumors about this mountain. Of spiritualists who transcend the material world while walking the high trails. Of cougars sleeping in the grass. Of coyotes who grab small children and disappear into the rocks.

The gray Pacific lies to the west and San Francisco Bay to the east, and the land in-between is multitudinous. Hardscrabble beaches. Green pastures and black forests. Brown hills and canyons filled with yellow light. The roads spiderweb down the hills, over the old Indian graveyards, past the abandoned communes and the Zen retreats. They snake beneath the custom homes that gleam on the promontories, through the old towns, past squares lined with madrone and eucalyptus and oak. All-American towns really, each one bleeding into the next.

It is a place where people find their inner selves, this mountain. Where they separate from the world.

Myself, I float over it all. Over the redwoods and the scrub oak. Over the roads that follow the old creeks, flowing through the subdivisions into the mudflats. I see the cars siphoning into 101, that gray ribbon that winds along the bay.

I see it all, I tell myself. I see everything.

My old house, my old life.

Elizabeth—alone by the water.

All visions are illusions, someone told me. At a cocktail party, I think. A colleague of mine. All dreams are born in the darkness, he said, and there are times, even now, I feel that darkness within myself.

I open my eyes.