Small Town Sins

A Novel

Ken Jaworowski

- 4.3 • 30 Ratings

- $14.99

- $14.99

EDGAR AWARD FINALIST

Ken Jaworowski’s Small Town Sins is a gripping Rust Belt thriller that captures the characters of a down-and-out Pennsylvania town, revealing their troubled pasts and the crimes that could cost them their lives.

In Locksburg, Pennsylvania, a former coal and steel town whose best days seem long past, five thousand residents have toughed it out, and have reasons for both worry and hope as this neglected place teeters between decay and renewal. For some of them, their biggest troubles have just arrived.

After years of just scraping by, three restless souls have their lives upended: Nathan, a volunteer fireman who uncovers a secret stash of money in a burning building and takes it; Callie, a nurse whose tender patient may not have long to live, despite the girl’s fundamentalist parents’ ardent beliefs; and Andy, a recovering heroin addict who undertakes a nightmare mission to hunt down and stop a serial predator.

Before long, Nathan’s stolen riches threaten to destroy everyone around him as he tries to cover his haphazard trail of lies. Callie risks her career to grant her young patient a final, and likely illegal, wish. And Andy’s hunger for vigilante justice becomes a fierce obsession that may end in violence.

As their stories barrel toward unexpected ends, Nathan, Callie, and Andy struggle to endure—or escape. They each face their pasts and gamble on their futures, and confront the underside of their rough Rust Belt town. Riveting, evocative, and unforgettable, Small Town Sins is a debut novel that marks the arrival of a major new talent.

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

Tragedy is never far from the surface in this affecting drama. Locksburg is a dying town in Rust Belt Pennsylvania, and for three residents, bad luck is always just around the corner. Nathan is a volunteer fireman who finds a cache of money in a burning building. Callie is a nurse trying to fulfill a dying girl’s last wish. Andy is a recovering addict who’s determined to stop a serial child predator. All three of these characters had us absolutely rapt as they struggled with their consciences and their own troubled pasts, with every step forward they each took threatening to set off a catastrophic domino effect. Debut author Ken Jaworowski elegantly captures the frustrated dreams and dead-end claustrophobia of his characters and their town with compassion and poignance, never shying away from the tragic consequences of their often well-intentioned but ill-advised actions. Small Town Sins is an evocative tale about the underside of America.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAY 8, 2023

New York Times editor Jaworowski shines in his artful debut, which interweaves the stories of several struggling residents in the Rust Belt town of Locksburg, Pa. When Nathan was 17, he impregnated the first girl he slept with and had to come up with the $1,000 she needed to get an abortion. He resorted to pawning his disabled mother's wedding ring, but when its disappearance was noted, the search for it ended tragically. Decades later, Nathan is a volunteer firefighter whose marriage is troubled by his wife's fertility issues. His fortunes change when he stumbles on millions in cash while saving a man from a burning building and chooses to keep the loot. Violent complications ensue, and Jaworowski weaves them with the stories of other desperate town residents, including the former-addict father of a disabled child and a nurse with a congenital facial disfigurement who hopes to give a girl with terminal cancer her dying wish, even if doing so would break the law. Jaworowski skillfully toggles between his plot threads, never sacrificing character development for cheap thrills. Admirers of Scott Smith's A Simple Plan will be eager for more from this talented storyteller.

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