In Falls Landing, Florida – a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers – something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of thirteen-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher’s daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older, and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they uncover will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives. Through a darkly beautiful and brutally compelling lens, Dizz Tate captures the violence, horrors, and manic joys of girlhood. ‘Brutes’ is a novel about the seemingly unbreakable bonds in the ‘we’ of young friendship, and the moment it is broken forever.