CAMMIE MCGOVERN

For nine years, Adam has been the centre of his mother, Cara's world. And, she thinks, she has been the centre of his, until the day he disappears. When he is found in the woods behind his school, beside the body of a little girl whom Cara has never heard of before, it feels as if her world has been torn apart. As Adam is locked into silence, unable to tell his mother what he has seen, Cara's desperation to understand her little boy becomes fiercer than ever. A heart-rending, utterly unputdownable story of the tangled bond between mother and child, "Eye Contact" engages the heart and will not let it go.

Like The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Cammie McGovern's breakout novel is at once a hypnotic thriller and an affecting portrait of people as real as our next-door neighbors. In Eye Contact, two children vanish in the woods behind their elementary school. Hours later, nine-year-old Adam is found alive, the sole witness to his playmate's murder. But because Adam has autism, he is a silent witness. Only his mother, Cara, can help decode his behavior for the police. As the suspense ratchets, Eye Contact becomes a heart-stopping exploration of the bond between a mother and a very special child.

For nine years Adam has been the centre of his mother, Cara's, world. And, she thinks, she has been the centre of his. Until the day he disappears. When he is found in the woods behind his school, beside the body of a little girl whom Cara has never heard of before, it feels as if her world has been torn apart. As Adam is locked into silence, unable to tell his mother what he has seen, Cara's desperation to understand her little boy becomes fiercer than ever.