A 17yr story of a dead girl finally finds closure by those who knew the whole story telling all.

Very good book. ( )

Before Gone Girl, Girl on the train there was the Virgin of Small Plains, the book didn’t look like much but it grabbed me from the first chapter and could not put it down. A real page turner. ( )

This isn't necessarily a book I would normally read, but the story intrigued me. A young woman is killed in a small town in Kansas. No one knows who she is and she is buried in an unmarked grave. A cult of the virgin grows up around her resting place and miracles are attributed to her.

Actually, as the story progresses, you realize quite a few people know who she is. And they're not talking.

This is also the story of a lost love between teenagers, of family relationships, of bad kids, good kids, and their parents. I was personally more interested in the mystery than the romances. ( )

Nancy Pickard's 2006 novel "The Virgin of Small Plains" threatens now and then to become a traditional murder mystery, a traditional romance or a traditional supernatural fantasy, but Pickard cleverly controls these impulses and instead gives us an original novel not so easy to place into any category.

Mitch Newquist and Abby Reynolds, the offspring of two the most prominent families in the small town of Small Plains, Kansas, are just teenagers in love when the story opens. Then Mitch witnesses something so shocking, so horrible that it forces, him into exile. What he sees involves the body of a dead girl and the actions of both Abby's father, a physician, and the sheriff, the father of their friend, Rex Shellberger. Hearing his story, Mitch's father, the judge, sends him away, telling him he must never return and never reveal what he witnessed.

Years later, following the death of his mother, Mitch, now a lawyer, does return. Rex has succeeded his father as county sheriff. Abby, in a dead-end affair with Rex's worthless brother, still pines for Mitch. The older generation remains steadfast, unwilling to talk about that dead girl or to tolerate any attempts to get at the truth of who she was or how she died.

Meanwhile, the dead girl has become something of a saint, her grave attracting pilgrims seeking healing. Many of them claim to have found it.

Pickard's twisty plot, a succession of surprises, comes down to generational battle, the young punished for the sins of their elders without understanding what those sins are or why they should suffer for them, their parents believing that some things, including that girl in the grave, should stay buried. The real miracle wrought by the Virgin of Small Plains is the power of truth revealed. ( )