A season in purgatory

the long version

Story about a wealthy Catholic family, a sinister murder of an innocent girl, and it's 20 year cover-up. Dominick Dunne turns the secrets of power and privilege into his most shocking and important novel. In A Season in Purgatory, Dunne explores a wealthy Catholic family, a sinister murder of an innocent girl, and its twenty-year cover-up. When Harrison Burns first meets the family of his boarding school chum Constant Bradley, he is awed by their wealth and generosity. But the Bradleys are a family of strong social aspirations and unrelenting political ambition, and Harrison soon learns that friendship with the Bradleys has its price. As Harrison Burns strips away the facade of wealth and acquisition, he brings the reader face to face with the inner structure of a large family at odds with the religion that is at its core, and the terrible secret that is his purgatory to bear. -- back cover.