A wrenching masterpiece about love, loyalty, and lies that will lodge itself in readers' psyches long after they've finished the last, stunning chapter.

Kate Wilhelm is another writer of contemporary fiction who can't quite be contained by labels. The author of more than thirty mystery and science fiction novels, Wilhelm is a master of psychological fiction. But her psychology is usually dark and provides an eerie, evocative atmosphere. Her latest novel The Good Children is neither mystery nor SF and it's certainly spooky enough to be called horror.

For parents, worry comes with the territory --at one time or another, most contemplate what would happen if their children were left alone in the world. Wilhelm takes this "what if?" and conjectures a chilling, but somehow consoling fable.

After a life of moving about following their father's career, the McNairs have settled in an old house in Oregon. They are a perfect family, finally living in a perfect house after never being in one place long enough to reach outside the family for anything. The mother, an orphan toughened by the streets, believes a family must stay together, no matter what. When the father dies suddenly, the mother is inconsolable and becomes even more isolated from the world beyond her family. Soon after, the four children, ages 15, 14, 11, and 6 find their mother dead under an apple tree. Fearing separation, they decide to keep her death a secret, and bury her in the garden.

The children manage to meet the practical challenges of daily life as well as the emotional hurdles of adolescence. But the youngest, Brian, insists his mother has never left.

Almost three years pass, and the older children grope toward adulthood while Brian turns ever inward. As the eldest prepares to enter college, they finally stage a "disappearance" for their long-dead mother, but for Brian his mother never left the first time, let alone the second.

Writing from the viewpoint of Amy, the next-to-youngest, Wilhelm conveys the notion that the dead can control the living with a remarkable gentleness and understanding. Although the "haunting" at the core of the novel is rooted in psychology, one feels that science is sometimes just a newer explanation for the supernatural. Wilhelm's The Good Children is a lyrically written, effectively chilling story that again proves her mastery as a storyteller.
— darkecho.com

Four siblings are thrown on their own considerable resources when they're unexpectedly orphaned in this spooky, consolatory fable from veteran tale-spinner Wilhelm (Malice Prepense, 1996, etc.). All their young lives, the McNair children have followed their father Warden, a structural engineer, from one exotic posting to another. But when Kevin, the oldest, threatens to run away if the family doesn't settle down, his parents buy a century-old house outside Portland, Ore., and prepare to put down roots. The roots may be deep, but they're not going to be wide, since Lee McNair, a former street kid who was rescued when Warden stayed in the hotel room she was cleaning, doesn't trust outsiders and all but chases the neighbors off with a broom. When Warden's killed at work, Lee is inconsolable in more ways than one, and her children, who've never made any friends in school, are left alone in their grief. Their isolation, though, is only a prelude to the ordeal that follows their discovery of Lee's body in the mud under their apple tree. Fearing that they'll be farmed out to separate foster homes if they report their mother's death to the authorities, the children contrive to keep it a secret, burying her in the garden, fending off the neighbors' few inquiries about Lee, and plotting their own futures. Truculent Kevin, 15, falls in love with computers; straight-A Amy, 14, is a budding marine biologist; awkward Liz, 11, takes up the violin and storytelling; and Brian, 6, remains haunted by the mother he insists has never left—and who he insists doesn't want him to leave either. Years pass, and the children, guided toward adulthood by Wilhelm's uncommon delicacy about theiradolescent hopes and fears, all make plans to follow their stars—except for Brian, whose deepening silence brings about the catastrophe that finally lays his unquiet mother to rest. Sensitive, moving, and gently haunting story about the two younger McNairs and their special kinship.

Three-time Nebula Award winner Kate Wilhelm creates an unsettling account of a family of four children who are trying to stay together under devastating circumstances. After their father is killed in an accident, their emotionally distraught and reclusive mother burdens them with an impossible promise. When their mother dies shortly afterward, the children try to abide by their promise, finding themselves sinking deeper and deeper into a tangled web of deceit. Carrington MacDuffie is convincing as Kevin, 15; Amy, 14; Liz, 11; and Brian, 6, attempt to hide their mother's death, hoping to avoid the foster care system. MacDuffie's treatment of Brian's slide into a psychological nightmare is especially chilling. Wilhelm's finely crafted thriller is made even more memorable by MacDuffie's sensitive performance. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine