Girls of Tender Age

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith grew up in small town America during the 1950s. In many ways it was a typical rough-and-tumble childhood, but a killer would change Mary-Ann's life and that of her home town forever. Mary-Ann comes from an extended French-Italian family - her mother, always on the verge of a nervous breakdown; her adoring father, the cornerstone of her childhood; and her numerous uncles, aunts and cousins, who parade through her life with love, food and endless stories of the old days. And then there's Tyler, her autistic brother, a Boo Radley to her Scout. Hanging over this world is the shadow of Bob Malm, who lurks throughout Mary-Ann's joyous and chaotic family portrait, until one night when the havoc he causes irrecoverably alters her world. "Girls of Tender Age" is one of those rare books that for ever changes its readers because of its beauty, its power and the harrowing crime at its heart.