Set in rural New England, USA, Something I Keep Upstairs is the story of Coleman Cooper, a troubled young man who can never get anything right—not even his own suicide. When he is sent to an open-door mental health facility in a small village to get his life back on track, his journey darkens even further: someone starts killing the psychiatrists, one by one. After taking a job tending bar at a local country inn—the social heart of the quirky little town where everyone knows everyone and grudges can last for decades—Coleman unwittingly finds himself at the center of the investigation, even a suspect. Yet as villagers dread news of more victims and the police come up empty-handed, it is Coleman, and he alone, who discovers the twisted path to the killer’s identity—and the door to a new life for himself.
Based in France since 1991, Philip Crawford is a former writer and editor for the International Herald Tribune (now The New York Times International Edition). He divides his time between Paris and Aix-en-Provence.