To the End of Reckoning

After a TBI alters a curmudgeonly psychiatrist’s mind—leaving him agitated and confused but obsessively observant—he enlists his reluctant son to help investigate a colleague’s mysterious suicide . . .

Twenty-three-year-old Lukas Moore has returned to his hometown of Faith, New York, and left his burgeoning acting career in the city behind to care for his father. Dr. Richard Moore is a psychiatrist known for being nearly as misanthropic as he is brilliant, but a recent traumatic brain injury has left him dependent on his begrudgingly attentive son and has changed his worldview in unexpected ways. Attuned to the slightest detail, Dr. Moore now sees mysteries where other people see settled facts—nowhere more so than in the disappearance of his former colleague and neighbor Dr. Jason Grant.

One year ago, Jason’s shoes, watch, and car were found beside a nearby lake and no trace of him has been found since. The obvious conclusion was suicide, despite Jason’s youth, wealth, and successful career as a child psychiatrist. Only two people question his fate: Richard, obsessed with fragments of memory, and Misty, Jason’s younger sister and Lukas’s high school girlfriend.

When Misty asks for the Moores’ help in finding out what really happened to her brother, Lukas takes the chance to resolve his father’s obsession and to reconnect with someone he may still have feelings for. As Lukas, Richard, and Misty are drawn into the puzzle, however, they are forced to confront the secrets behind both Jason’s disappearance and Richard’s injury. Sometimes the deepest mysteries are found in the people we think we know best.

An auspicious adult debut . . . Moldover draws even minor supporting characters in three dimensions, making the elegant core mystery much more satisfying than the average whodunit. Fans of character-driven crime fiction will eagerly await Moldover’s next move.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

To the End of Reckoning blew me away. Once I picked up the piece, it was impossible to put down. The unusual Holmes-Watson pairing of father and son was pure delight. And after writing twenty mysteries of my own and reading hundreds of others, it’s a joy to find a story whose twists and turns are so wonderfully unpredictable.”
—William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award winning author

What a joy to read this novel—it’s a touching and heartbreaking father-son story wrapped in a relatable fast-paced literary mystery—Holmes and Watson written by John Irving. The setting is immersive and the plot is splendid, but the oh-so-talented Joseph Moldover has also created an unforgettable set of characters, led by an instantly-iconic Sherlockian doctor, whose brain injury may or may not actually be a gift. In this engaging and thought-provoking story of family, responsibility, connections, love and loss and power—Moldover writes with intelligence and insight and wry humor. I devoured it in one sitting, and truly, now, I want go back and read this beautifully crafted story again.”
—Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author

A young, aspiring actor returns home to take care of his ailing physician father in this moving, intensely readable story about what happens when filial love, ambition, and duty collide. To the End of Reckoning is a propulsive, heartrending mystery that delivers on both an intellectual and emotional level.”
—Erica Ferencik, author of Girl In Ice, Into the Jungle and The River at Night

A soulful, moving novel of suspense—a psychological thriller that’s genuinely, thrillingly psychological. Joseph Moldover’s spellbinding debut will involve you and provoke you (book clubs, take note) even as it breaks your heart. A long time after I turned the final page, it still burns in my head, warm and bright and beautiful.”
—A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

Joseph Moldover, a clinical neuropsychologist, is the author of the young adult novels Every Moment After and Just Until. His short fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pangyrus, Stonecoast Review, MonkeyBicycle, One Teen Story, Typehouse, The MacGuffin, and elsewhere. From 2020–2023 he co-hosted the online program and podcast Authors Love Bookstores for A Mighty Blaze. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and their four children. Find him online at josephmoldover.com.