Conscience: A Brefniverse Psychological Noir Thriller (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798249439323)

A newlywed man discovers that his elderly father-in-law is actually a cunning sociopath planning to kill him before the weekend is over.

Kevin and Janice McClure were a happy newlywed couple from New York City.

Or so it seemed.

When the two young lovebirds head upstate to meet her long estranged parents for the first time together, their lives are changed forever. Janice's father, Earl Gordon, on the surface a kindly old man, suddenly reveals himself to be a cold blooded and very calculating sociopath. On the glimmering surface of picturesque lake, on an early Saturday morning fishing trip, he calmly announces to a groggy Kevin that he plans to kill him before the weekend is over.

Amidst the tranquil countryside, in the remote woods of a small town, Kevin finds himself cornered, face to face with a madman seemingly devoid of conscience. And he's the only one who knows it. Earl has had it all planned out for quite some time now. The perfect murder. And he intends to watch Kevin squirm all the while like bait on the hook. Realizing it's his word, that of a slick metrosexual yuppie from the city, against Earl's, a beloved small-town codger and war veteran, Kevin knows he's stuck and outnumbered.

When they return to the homestead, Kevin finds another intimidating menace, Jim Raines, the town sheriff, also a close and fiercely loyal friend of dear old Earl. Caught off guard once again by the sheriff's rather pointed questions about his past and surrounded by Earl's redneck friends, Kevin decides to bide his time. And measure his words. Carefully.

That's because Kevin has secrets of his own.

With a lucrative corporate fraud scheme in the works back in New York that he was reluctantly roped into by a colleague, Kevin seems very much in over his head as he tries to confide to his wife about the shocking new development with Earl. But when Janice reveals that dear old dad is the victim of an inoperable brain tumor and has only weeks to live, he is silenced once again and puzzled. Is the death threat merely a result of dementia brought on by the tumor? Or is this just another disturbing ploy from the increasingly manipulative Earl, the perfect cover story for his madness. Whatever the cause, the result is the same: Kevin is still trapped in the coldest place on earth... the mind game of a truly deranged individual.

From there on out, Kevin frantically tries to sort out the truth behind this new twisted family dynamic as he plays a cat and mouse game of psychological terror over the course of the weekend, matching wits with Earl and his friends through the bluffs and tells of an all-night poker game and finally culminating with a Sunday hunting trip showdown.

Conscience... The evil is in the mind. The science is in the con.

Author: Brefni O'Rourke
ISBN-13: 9798249439323
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 02/23/2026
Pages: 202
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.46d