A DOUBLE MURDER ANCHORS MARTHA BURNS’S debut novel, Blind Eye (Atmosphere Press), but the mystery of its perpetrator fits into larger dramas of generational abuse and a community’s reluctance to reveal what it knows to authorities. The book thinly fictionalizes the real-life case of Cody Posey. In 2004, after suffering years of abuse, the 14-year-old killed three of his family members on journalist Sam Donaldson’s Hondo ranch, where they worked and lived. Burns crafts vividly compelling scenes that describe the danger of rural isolation and the laments of neighbors who too late regretted their own “blind eye” and collective failure to act.

Read more: "Eerie New Mexico" author Ray John de Aragón speaks about his work as a folklorist and historian.