New York Timesbestselling author ofDescentandThe CurrentTim Johnston returns with an absorbing new crime novel set in a small Wisconsin town haunted by the unsolved disappearance of three boys in the 1970s.

What if?

What if Sean Courtland’s old Chevy truck had broken down somewhere else? What if he’d never met Denise Givens, a waitress at a local tavern, and gotten into a bar fight defending her honor? Or offered a ride and a job to Dan Young, another young man like Sean, burdened by secrets and just drifting through town?

Instead, over the course of just a few short weeks, Sean and Dan form a deep friendship as they get drawn into the lives of the people they meet–from Denise and her father, to Marion Devereaux, who needs some work done on his house, to Corinne Viegas, a savvy detective with top-notch instincts–all haunted in different ways by the disappearance of three young boys decades ago, in the 1970s. And as these characters converge, an irreversible chain of events is set in motion that culminates in shattering violence, and the revelation of long-buried truths.

Evocative and gritty,Distant Sonsis another immersive, gripping suspense novel by Johnston about how the most random intersection of lives can have consequences both devastating and beautiful.