Celebrating the Anniversary of the Novel That Still Cuts Deep

Dear Reader, 

Time has a way of folding back on itself. One moment you’re writing through the early hours, chasing voices in the dark — the next, the story has made its way into the world, carrying more than you intended.

This month marks the anniversary of Shadows of Dismemberment, a novel that became something unintended: my final work.  A sequel had begun and now rests in partial notes, draft chapters and scattered dialogue, its voice silenced before it could fully speak. But illness has a way of closing doors before you realise they’ve shut. What remains is this finished piece, both a culmination and, reluctantly, a farewell.

Three Places. One Thread of Violence.

The novel moves between three distinct settings, each chosen for what it reveals:

New York City, all vertical edges and sleepless glass, masks its violence beneath noise and ambition. Wales, remote and fog-drenched, is a landscape shaped by silence — where truths are buried under stone, blood, and memory. 1938, threaded carefully through the modern-day narrative, places trauma in context, not as a relic but as origin. Some horrors are inherited. Some simply adapt. This features a carefully studied Eliot Ness.

Exciting action setups are littered throughout, but the plot doesn’t chase twists or shock reveals. It spirals, slow and exacting — a psychological reckoning that leaves its trace long after the final page.

What About the Victims?

One exchange from the novel continues to haunt:

“Victims are seldom remembered,” a voice says.

“I remember all their names. All their faces,” John Satori replies.

That moment — recently reimagined in a new visual to mark the anniversary — sits at the core of the story. Not a confrontation between good and evil, but a reckoning between memory and silence. (Image below.)

Fiction Meets Reality

Shortly after Shadows of Dismemberment was released, the Idaho student murders surfaced in real life. At sentencing, Judge Steven Hippler said the killer should be “forgotten and studied in silence,” allowing the victims to live on in public memory — a sentiment that quietly echoed the novel’s own heartbeat.

Because Shadows was never about the killer’s mind. It was always about what was left behind.

Editions Out Now:

A Hardback Edition with an exclusive cover Paperback and Kindle editions

Available here:

👉 https://amzn.eu/d/fEXIp12

This isn’t about legacy. It’s about remembering what should never be forgotten.

Thank you for walking through the shadows with me.

— A. M. Esmonde