Dustin Tillman has a fairly normal life. On the surface. He's a psychologist who specialized in hypnotism, to help his clients quit smoking or deal with chronic pain or anxiety. He enjoys his work. He has a lawyer wife and two sons. Their lives in Cleveland go on as most families do.
Except Dustin has a secret. He has a past, one where his parents and aunt and uncle were brutally murdered when he was a child. His older brother Rusty, adopted after his foster family died in a fire, is charged with the killings. He was convicted after Dustin and one of his cousins testified to witnessing Satanic rituals, and teenaged Rusty had no real defense against the rising panic.
So when one of Dustin's patients, a cop on disability, comes to him with a theory about murdered college students, Dustin is interested. And as he gets pulled deeper into the story, there are questions about whether the killer in question (if, in fact, it is a killer--the victims are drunk college guys who are found drowned in nearby rivers or lakes) is more than one individual, or even a group . . . or a cult.
And then Dustin gets word that Rusty is getting released from prison. The Innocence Project had taken on his case, and they found DNA evidence that exonerated him. So now Dustin has more questions. Will Rusty try to contact him? What should he say if he does? And who was behind the murder of his parents, if not Rusty?
Dan Chaon's Ill Will unwinds in layers. You think you know what it's about, and then it all changes. It shifts, the way a memory can shift, the way time plays with our heads, the way other people add meaning or secrets or depth to a story in ways we don't always understand at the time. The pieces of the puzzle fall into place slowly, with painstaking precision and breath-taking detail.
I will be honest. I'm still waiting for my head to stop spinning on this one. It's complex. There is a part of me that wants to say that I highly recommend this book, and I do. It's masterful in ways I can't even talk about yet. So it will take me some time to know for sure how and when to recommend this book. But once I figure that part out, I will be recommending it for a very, very, very long time.
Galleys for Ill Will provided by the publisher through NetGalley.com.