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Promise Not to Tell is a mystery novel with supernatural elements written by Vermont author Jennifer McMahon, released April 2007 in the US by Harper Paperbacks (an imprint of HarperCollins). It was released in Germany by Rowohlt Verlag, under the title Das Madchen Im Wald (The Girl in the Woods), in October 2007. It will be released in the United Kingdom by Orion Books in 2008.
The novel alternates between 2002 and 1971, and tells the story of Kate Cypher, a 41-year-old school nurse who returns to the Vermont hippie commune where she grew up to care for her aging mother, who is afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. Her first night home, a murder takes place behind her mother's cabin -- the killing is identical to that of Kate's childhood friend, Del Griswold, in 1971. Del was a scrappy outcast in life, shunned and taunted as "Potato Girl," and since her unsolved murder, she has become something of a local legend, supposedly tormenting the townsfolk from beyond the grave. Kate never revealed her close relationship to Del, before or after her death, unable to stand up to those who pitied or reviled Del. Kate is drawn into the investigation of the modern-day crime, and must revisit the original murder, and her culpability in it.
