Catch the Sparrow
Perfect for lovers of I’ll be Gone in the Dark and The Fact of a Body, Rachel Rear’s story is a potent blend of personal and professional. As a journalist looking into the disappearance of her stepsister, Stephanie Kupchynsky, Rachel’s narrative movingly explores the legacy of loss.
Growing up near Rochester, NY, Rachel knew the story of Stephanie’s disappearance – but in the region that has spawned more than one serial killer, to most it was just another news item. But to Stephanie’s family it was anything but, and when Rachel’s mother married Stephanie’s father after the crime it became part of their family narrative too.
In Catch the Sparrow Rachel follows the path of a decades-long crime, of the failures to discover what really happened to Stephanie and the thread this carried through many lives. Beautifully, hauntingly told, Catch the Sparrow is a true crime narrative like no other, one that will stay with you long after the devastating truth of the story has been revealed.
Rhiannon Smith
'Catch the Sparrow is true crime at its most personal and purposeful - heartfelt and intimate, noble and determined, meticulous and brave'
Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD and LOST GIRLS
Growing up, Rachel Rear knew the story of Stephanie Kupchynsky's disappearance. The beautiful violinist and teacher had fled an abusive relationship on Martha's Vineyard and made a new start for herself near Rochester, NY. She was at the height of her life - in a relationship with a man she hoped to marry and close to her students and her family. And then, one morning, she was gone.
Near Rochester - a region which has spawned such serial killers as Arthur Shawcross and the 'Double Initial' killer - Stephanie's disappearance was just another news item. But Rachel had more reason than most to be haunted by this particular story of a missing white woman: Rachel's mother had married Stephanie's father after the crime, and Rachel grew up in the shadow of her stepsister's legacy.
In Catch the Sparrow, Rachel Rear writes a compulsively readable and unerringly poignant reconstruction of the dark and serpentine path, across more than two decades, to try to solve the case. Obsessively cataloging the crime and its costs, drawing intimately closer to the details than any journalist could, she reveals how a dysfunctional justice system laid the groundwork for Stephanie's murder and stymied the investigation for more than twenty years, and what those hard years meant for the lives of Stephanie's family and loved ones. Startling, unputdownable, and deeply moving, Catch the Sparrow is a retelling of a crime like no other.
