The Pact

Bainbridge, New Hampshire, is home to two families who have shared a fence and a friendship for years: the Golds and the Hartes. Their children, Emily Gold and Chris Harte, grew up as sweethearts, and most people around them assumed the two would marry.

Then Emily is found dead from a gunshot wound, with Chris badly hurt beside her. Chris tells the police that the two of them agreed to die together. The police suspect murder instead, and Chris is charged.

As the case heads toward trial, the narrative moves between the parents, the lawyers and the two teenagers. Each household gets its own turn, so the reader watches the same events from several sides. The book works as a family drama and a courtroom story at once.

The friendship between the Golds and the Hartes starts to break apart under the pressure of the charge. Each set of parents has to ask how well they knew their own child, and how well they knew the people living next door. Whether Chris's account of that night holds up is the question the trial hangs on.