The Outcasts

"If Stephen King had decided to write Salem's Lot or It as a thriller instead of horror, the result would be Michael Murray's The Outcasts... Murray's polished prose, tightly-plotted structure, apparent knowledge of and respect for fact-based science, and flawless narrative execution are typically hallmarks of a writer significantly further along in their career...The Outcasts is irresistible—an undiscovered find that will spur literary insiders to introduce Murray and Valley Ridge by word-of-mouth to readers eager for the next big thriller." — Linda Lowen, National Book Critics Circle member, Reedsy Discovery.

The woods were never the thing to be afraid of.

Valley Ridge, Virginia is the kind of small town that believes itself beyond the reach of darkness-a place tucked against the Blue Ridge Mountains where people know hard winters, but not the kind of loss that leaves an empty chair at the dinner table. That illusion shatters the night eighteen-year-old star pitcher Alex Trent throws a no-hitter and vanishes.

What looks at first like a missing-person case soon reveals something far worse moving through the woods surrounding Valley Ridge. Alex isn't the first to disappear-and whatever took him is like nothing the world has ever encountered, the creation of a brilliant, unhinged virologist who has set it loose on the town.

At the heart of it are two teenagers the town has always overlooked. Wyatt Turner lives with osteogenesis imperfecta-bones so brittle they've broken more times than he can count-and a telekinetic power he barely understands and can't always control. Tommy Copeland lost his sight in a tragic accident, yet can see the world like no one else can. They call themselves the Outcasts. And they aren't the only ones who sense what's coming-an aging police chief named Ed Watkins feels it too, and he's been hiding a secret of his own for years.

On the surface, they're all just looking for Alex-Watkins working the case, Wyatt and Tommy pulled in from the edges of a town that has never quite made room for them. But the closer they get, the harder it becomes to explain why their paths keep crossing, why the three of them feel bound to this in a way no one else does. Something has drawn them together. What that something is-and why it chose them-is the secret waiting at the heart of Valley Ridge.

The Outcasts is a supernatural thriller about belonging, and about the particular loneliness of young people whose gifts set them apart from the world they most want to join. It moves with the momentum of a mystery but draws its weight from the bond between two boys who were never supposed to matter.