RUBY FALLS

In 1932, a young woman gets entangled in a gruesome murder mystery when a publicity stunt in a deep underground cave goes dangerously awry.

When Ruby Lambert takes Ada Smith to see a mountain passage leading to an underground waterfall Ruby’s husband, Leo, discovered and named for her in late 1928, Ada feels a deep urge to explore. The Lamberts build a restaurant near the passage soon afterward while Ada quietly visits the interior of the mountain on private adventures. Three years later, Ruby and Leo struggle to hold on to their business as the Great Depression brings America to its knees. To entice paying visitors, Leo invites mind reader Jeremiah Hagathorn to find a hatpin two of his associates hide near the falls. Jeremiah can use only his psychic abilities to find the item and has just 12 hours to complete the task. Carrying flashlights and carbide lamps, five people accompany Jeremiah into the mountain: his wife and manager, a Chicago Times reporter, Leo’s two associates. Two others, Ada and a fellow male caver, follow at a distance as safety backups. Moving between the third-person perspectives of each character in this group of seven, Phillips spins a complex tale fueled by secrets and hidden motivations. She creates layers of tension through a potent mix of unspoken sexual desires, dark and dangerous passageways, a claustrophobic atmosphere and a brutal murder that takes place at the end of the allotted 12 hours, while the characters are still deep underground. Woven from historical events like the discovery of Ruby Falls, documents like a 19th-century female caver’s memoir, and the workings of brilliantly brooding imagination, this story of murder, lust, and survival is as disturbing as it is mesmerizing.

A hyper-immersive novel that fearlessly explores the darkest, most primal corners of the human heart.