The Broken Places A Novel [Paperback]

When an abandoned farmhouse collapses in Casey, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Paul Tucker's father, Sonny, and the other Casey firemen attempt a dangerous rescue to reach a teenager buried under the rubble. Sonny himself is trapped by a secondary collapse and Paul and his mother fear the worst, but Sonny -- a second-generation fireman beloved in town -- emerges hours later, carrying the maimed body of sixteen-year-old Ian Finch. The rescue of this swastika-tattooed hoodlum -- who may have brought the house down while building bombs -- becomes a validation of all things American and true, and Sonny is immediately hailed as a national hero. But Ian's continued presence in Sonny's life creates a new set of hurdles for young Paul -- and his mother and his hometown -- to overcome.Chapter One

The wind was at his back. Heart pounding, Paul Tucker pedaled furiously through downtown Casey, soared past the firehouse, the barbershop, the drugstore, the post office. It was October, not cold, but plenty cool to chill his knuckles around the handlebars as he sped toward the Neidermeyer farm. An explosion! So far that was all he knew, but the word alone was enough to set his mind racing. Gas leak? Pesticides? Gunpowder? A gaping crater in the ground where the Neidermeyer home had stood for a hundred and thirty years? He hoped he wasn't too late. What if he'd missed all the good stuff? What if his father and the rest of the crew were already packing up their equipment, starting the engines, heading back to the station? He shifted gears, pedaled harder.

Paul had lied to his mother, claimed he was biking downtown to pick up a pack of gum at Dewey Drugs. He lied to his mother frequently these days, often for no other reason than to assert his independence from her, to prove to himself that he was his own man with his own life, a life full of rich adventures she had no cause to know about. He'd turned twelve at the end of August, and twelve had shifted something inlãž