The Dogs of Babel
By Carolyn Parkhurst
Little Brown & Company, 2003

(From the publisher) Paul Iverson's life changes in an instant. He returns home one day to find that his wife Lexy has died under strange circumstances. The only witness was their dog, Lorelei, whose anguished barking brought help to the scene—but too late.

In the days and weeks that follow, Paul begins to notice strange "clues" in their home: books rearranged on their shelves, a mysterious phone call, and other suggestions that nothing about Lexy's last afternoon was quite what it seemed. Reeling from grief, Paul is determined to decipher this evidence and unlock the mystery of her death.

But he can't do it alone; he needs Lorelei's help. A linguist by training, Paul embarks on an impossible endeavor: a series of experiments designed to teach Lorelei to communicate what she knows. Perhaps behind her wise and earnest eyes lies the key to what really happened to the woman he loved.

As Paul's investigation leads him in unexpected and even perilous directions, he revisits the pivotal moments of his life with Lexy, the brilliant, enigmatic woman whose sparkling passion for life and dark, troubled past he embraced equally.

About the author
(From the publisher) Carolyn Parkhurst holds an MFA in creative writing from American University. She has published fiction in the North American Review, the Minnesota Review, Hawai'i Review, and the Crescent Review. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and their son.