The distant dead : a novel
(Book)

Lovelock, Nevada. A boy walks into the fire station, pale with the shock of a grisly discovery. By day's end, the body burning in the desert hills is identified as local math teacher Adam Merkel. A seemingly unremarkable man, he left a university professorship in Reno to teach middle school, but connected with just one of his students: Sal Prentiss, a lonely sixth grader who lives with his uncles on a desolate ranch in the hills. Sal found Adam's body, charred almost beyond recognition, half a mile from his uncles' compound. Nora Wheaton, the middle school's social studies teacher, delves into Adam's past and finds a dark history she understands all too well. -- adapted from jacket