In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is found dead. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team know they must tread carefully to solve this sensitive case. But tensions rise when they learn that the victim was stabbed somewhere else and dumped. Who is the boy, and where did he come from? Then, in a decayed area of Eastvale scheduled for redevelopment, a heroin addict is found dead. Was this just another tragic overdose or something darker? Just when he needs to be his sharpest, the seasoned detective finds himself distracted by a close friend’s increasingly precarious situation. He needs a break --- and gets one when he finds a connection to a real estate developer that could be key to finding the truth.

In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is found dead. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team know they must tread carefully to solve this sensitive case. But tensions rise when they learn that the victim was stabbed somewhere else and dumped. Who is the boy, and where did he come from? Then, in a decayed area of Eastvale scheduled for redevelopment, a heroin addict is found dead. Was this just another tragic overdose or something darker? Just when he needs to be his sharpest, the seasoned detective finds himself distracted by a close friend’s increasingly precarious situation. He needs a break --- and gets one when he finds a connection to a real estate developer that could be key to finding the truth.

Peter Robinson, the acclaimed author of the bestselling series Stephen King calls “the best now on the market,” returns with a gripping, emotionally charged mystery in which the revered detective Alan Banks must find the truth about a murder with possible racial overtones --- and save a friend from ruin.

In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is found dead, his body stuffed in a wheelbarrow on the East Side Estate. Detective Superintendent Banks and his team know they must tread carefully to solve this sensitive case. But tensions rise when they learn that the victim was stabbed somewhere else and dumped. Who is the boy, and where did he come from?

Then, in a decayed area of Eastvale scheduled for redevelopment, a heroin addict is found dead. Was this just another tragic overdose or something darker?

To prevent tensions from reaching a boiling point, Banks must find answers quickly. Yet just when he needs to be his sharpest, the seasoned detective finds himself distracted by a close friend’s increasingly precarious situation. He needs a break --- and gets one when he finds a connection to a real estate developer that could be key to finding the truth.

With so many loose ends dangling, there is one thing Banks is sure of --- solving the case may come at a terrible cost.

Audiobook available, read by Simon Prebble

On June 25, 1980, in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For 13 years, no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders," though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. In THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL, Emma Copley Eisenberg uses the Rainbow Murders case as a starting point for a thought-provoking tale of an Appalachian community bound by the false stories that have been told about it.

On June 25, 1980, in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For 13 years, no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders," though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. In THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL, Emma Copley Eisenberg uses the Rainbow Murders case as a starting point for a thought-provoking tale of an Appalachian community bound by the false stories that have been told about it.

A stunning, complex narrative about the fractured legacy of a decades-old double murder in rural West Virginia --- and the writer determined to put the pieces back together.

In the early evening of June 25, 1980, in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For 13 years, no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders," though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community, depicted as poor, dangerous and backward.

In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. As time passed, the truth seemed to slip away, and the investigation itself inflicted its own traumas --- turning neighbor against neighbor and confirming the fears of violence outsiders have done to this region for centuries.

In THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL, Emma Copley Eisenberg uses the Rainbow Murders case as a starting point for a thought-provoking tale of an Appalachian community bound by the false stories that have been told about it. Weaving in experiences from her own years spent living in Pocahontas County, she follows the threads of this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, revealing how this mysterious murder has loomed over all those affected for generations, shaping their fears, fates and desires.

Beautifully written and brutally honest, THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL presents a searing and wide-ranging portrait of America --- divided by gender and class, and haunted by its own violence.

Audiobook available, read by Emma Copley Eisenberg