A Separate Peace Chapter 1-5 Summary

CHAPTERS 1-5:
• Narrator introduces himself as a detective and claims he craves truth but lies
• Manipulates his suspects into giving in and giving him the confession he wants
• His name is Adam Robert Ryan
• He grew up Knocknaree, Ireland
• Book opens and it is 1984
• His best friends were Peter Savage and Jamie Rowan
• Went into the woods to play but did not return in time for tea and as the night dragged on their parents grew worried and finally called the police
• Adam Ryan was the only one who was found: 4 gashes in his shirt, legs all cut up, shoes soaked in blood, petrified and in shock
• No DNA testing in Ireland at the time but blood is believed to be from a 4th person
• Jamie and Peter are never found
• Adam moves to London for boarding
school at Templemore
• Loses the Irish accent
• After years of living in a dingy apartment and doing nothing with his life Adam chooses to become a detective

• Moves back to Ireland and joins the elite Dublin Murder Squad
• Meets Cassie- the first woman ever to be accepted onto the squad (lots of gossip over why)
• Claims to “fall in love” when he gives her a ride home after her Vespa breaks down
• Then begins to “like her”
• Friends ever since
• One day in the office O’Kelly (Chief of Murder Squard) barges in and offers up case of murdered girl in Knocknaree and Cassie's volunteers them for it
• Dead girl is Katy Devlin: found on Neolithic age rock on an Archeology site by the edge of the woods. 12-13 years old, head bashed in, most likely abused, killed somewhere else, body dumped there
• Dr. Hunt is site director, introduces them to Mark who is in charge.
• Sophie is crime-scene tech
• Rob finds a strawberry hairclip but cannot remember where he has seen it
• Set up headquarters in site shed
• First they interview Damien: he found the body first, really shook up, weak and has a “pop-boyband” look to him, Rob hates him immediately, claims to have seen a man lurking around the site in a deep blue track suit
• Then they interview Melanie (Mel): Says it the body was not there yesterday, is on the site a lot, learn Katy hung out there a lot with other local kids

• They learn the site is soon going to be bulldozed for motorway and there are lots of protests
• They go to the Devlin’s house to meet their family: shocked and heartbroken.
• The relationship between the parents is really weird- will not touch or look at each other. Jonathan Devlin is really intimidating and composed while Margaret is emotional and comes off meek and quiet.
• Katy has two sisters: Rosalind and Jessica. Rosalind is a teenager while Jessica is her twin sister. Rosalind is beautiful and kind while Jessica will not talk and has social issues.
• Jonathan is a part of the “Move the Motorway” campaign and has received three threatening phone calls
• Their house is overall weird and something is very wrong in the family. They are not telling everything they know and Rob and Cassie can tell immediately
• Katy was an extremely talented dancer who everyone loved
• Was offered a scholarship
• Got sick a lot but suddenly stopped
• Rob discovers hairclip is same as Jamie’s
• They get O’Kelly to assign Sam O’Neill to help them, partially because his uncle is a politician who can help uncover details about the campaign
• Rob lives in an apartment with a girl name Heather who annoys him and he’s always eating her food

• He realizes he knows Jonathan from when they were kids. Jonathan was a part of the “bad boy” biker group who Rob, Peter, and Jamie would spy on in the woods
• A lot of chapter 5 is waiting on the autopsy and other reports
• Autopsy: Katy was hit twice on the back of the head (left side), suffocated, raped, and dumped on the archeological site
• They interview Mark again (he is beginning to become very rude and cranky) but it is too easy and simple for him to be the killer
• Rob and Cassie smoke A LOT when they are stressed

CHAPTERS 6-10
• Cassie and Rob interview Mark- he claims he never had seen Katy before and was with Mel the night of the murder. He admits to camping out in the woods sometimes.
• Rosalind calls Rob and says she needs to talk to him and asks if they can meet up away from her house.
• Rob begins going through the old case box and finds his slashed up shirt and wonders how everything is connected. He is worried how long it will be before they force finds out his real name (he will be kicked off and fired).
• They then interview Mel who confirms Mark’s alibi. Calls him an “intense guy” who’s really passionate about his work.
• They interview Aunt Vera (Katy’s aunt) and she confirms Rosalind and Jessica were with her that night. She is extremely weird as well.
• While she is talking about how much Jonathan loves his daughters, her daughter Valerie buts in and says he would hit them and that’s why Rosalind ran away one time. She says he is mean to them and they are scared of him. Vera tries to recover and brushes it off.
• Don’t find any other information from interviewing people.
• Rob talks about Jaime and Peter a little deeper. (Jamie was a tomboy and Peter was nice). He wonders if the actual reason his parents sent him

away to London for school was because they were afraid of him.
• Rob, Cassie, and Sam begin having dinner together every night to unwind and discuss the cases and always crash at each other’s place (beginning of friendship between the three).
• Rob and Cassie attend Katy’s funeral; it renews a fire in them to solve the case.
• They begin to nitpick and search everything: phone records, medical records, her dance studio, her friends, an online pedophile ring, her grades, etc.
• There is absolutely nothing wrong school-wise, medical-wise, or friendship-wise
• Rob finally meets with Rosalind. She is really fragile and heartbroken. Claims Katy lied to her father
• Jessica never speaks and is really quiet.
• Rosalind calls another day and says that Jessica has something to tell Rob. She is really quiet and just mumbles, refusing to say anything. Finally Rosalind gets her to admit a creepy guy in a blue track suit was following them and tried to talk to Katy.
• DNA blood results are back: rocks matches type from 1894 case. Shoes are too old to pull results out of.
• Cassie talks to old cops that were in charge of 1984 case.
• While Rob researches the blue track suit lead, Sam follows up on the motorway debate. He finds out there

is a lot of money and big-time people involved. Any one of them could have hired a hit-man to get back at Jonathan. He also traces the threatening phone calls back to various pay phones around bars in the local area.
• Rob remembers an incident involving Jonathan and his friends when they were teenagers: Rob, Jamie, and Peter witnessed them raping a girl in the woods. This raises suspicions on Jonathan for abuse allegations.
• They go to Knocknaree to interview Jamie and Peter’s parents. Rob stays in the car, fearing they could possibly recognize him and wanting to avoid emotions that would come with it.
• Cassie is the first to suggest that Rosalind could be lying and fed them that story to throw them off track.
• Sam finds a journalist who can give him the names of the men who are funding the new motorway.

CHAPTERS 11-15
• Rob goes to dinner at his parents’ house and learns they were never scared of him: they were scared of losing him.
• His mother tries to get him to remember how he was the good one of the group, always kind and polite. In Rob’s clouded memory this was Peter.
• Rob gets drunk to drown his sorrows and emotions and is a blithering mess on the stand the next day when he and Cassie have to testify for a past case. He later blames this all on a migraine.
• Skips dinner at Cassie’s for the first time and finally fully remembers Jonathan Devlin and his friends taking advantage of a girl named Sandra in the woods; tells Cassie.
• Sam has great luck: he finds out that Terence Andrews (one of the big time funders) lives near where the phone calls were made.
• They go to interview Sandra and she confirms Rob’s memory. She was going out with Cathal Mills who was friends with Jonathan Devlin and Shane Waters. (Cassie and Rob immediately decide to investigate all 3 men more).
• She claims she heard a wild animal in the woods and Rob wonders if that was what could be behind the incident.
• Rob goes after Jonathan first and interrogates him in his house. Devlin

is furious at first with the allegations of murdering his daughter but admits to the rape and claims how sorry he is about it. Rob then interviews Shane, who is now in prison and knows nothing. Finally both Rob and Cassie find Cathal and embarrass him in front of a board meeting. Cathal is a complete jerk who is proud of what they did. However, he knows nothing about Katy.
• Cassie explains to Rob how Cathal is a psychopath and tells him a story about one she knew in college that tormented her and was the reason she ultimately dropped out.
• They bring in Devlin to the police station for questioning and things get heated: after accusing Mrs. Devlin of poisoning Katy, Rob gets frustrated and tries to attack Devlin. Cassie attempts to hold him back but he ends up hitting her and hurts her. Cassie kicks him out and is furious about his behavior.
• Rob gets drunk again after his freak-out in the precinct. He also buys Cassie gifts in an attempt to apologize.
• They begin to tap Andrews phone to see if Sam’s suspicions are correct.

CHAPTERS 16-20
• Rob decides to camp out in the woods alone for a night hoping it will bring back memories.
It puts him on edge and gives him vivid flashbacks and when he finally falls asleep he has a nightmare. He wakes up to a scream from deep within the woods and begins hearing voices. He is scared and not in any state to drive so he calls Cassie to pick him up. She takes him back to her place to get him something to eat and try to calm him down. They end up kissing.
• The next day Rob begins acting really weird. He will not look at Cassie, say more than one sentence, and refuses to come over for dinner.
• He meets with Rosalind again. She talks about how she knows Cassie does not like her and how much she appreciates Rob for being there for her. She tries to kiss him, but Rob turns her down and she gets angry because she thought he cared for her.
• The medical records for ALL the Devlin’s come back from the lab and they are all in perfectly good health.
• Andrews receives an interesting phone call that Rob and Sam listen in on: it’s Sam’s uncle telling Andrews to not talk to the police without a lawyer and that he would take care of the details. Sam is shocked and when he takes it to O’Kelly, he tells him to erase it and cover it up. Sam is torn over what to
do.

• Cassie asks Rob why he is being weird and Rob makes it worse by being a jerk and brushing her off claiming nothing is wrong.
• When Rob returns to the site of the dig by the woods to get his car he left there when Cassie picked him up, he has an epiphany: he remembers when a worker on the site, Sean, mentioned losing his trowel. It would have been in a shed, which only Mark, Damien, and Dr. Hunt have the key for. Rob calls in Cassie, Sophie, and other team members to immediately come search the grounds for the trowel like they should have weeks ago. They find it under tarps in an unused tool shed and Sophie finds blood splatters over the tarps and floor. The murder scene has officially been found.
• They bring in Mark, Dr. Hunt, and Damien for questioning and quickly narrow it down between Mark and Damien. Rob takes Damien while Sam takes Mark. Rob starts off simple, asking Damien to recall small details. Then he goes deeper by showing him pictures of Katy and the crime scene, trying to invoke some emotions. Rob questions his alibi (he was at home with his mom but she was asleep) and begins accusations. Sophie calls him during and confirms the towel was the rape weapon. The back and forth between Damien and Rob goes on for hours between Rob accusing him and pretending to be his friend in order to make him comfortable.

• Finally Damien breaks and confesses to murdering Katy Devlin.

CHAPTERS 21-25
• Damien recounts how he took Katy to the finds shed and told her to look at something on the shelf, hit her on the head from behind, and when she began to scream he put a plastic bag over her head. He wrapped her up in the tarp and kept her there that night before dumping her on the rock on the site the next day.
• He invented the tracksuit guy story, but Cassie suggests interrogating Rosalind because she told the same story.
• Rob protests and tells Cassie she always hated Rosalind because she was jealous.
• This infuriates Cassie who goes to get Rosalind herself while Rob tries to figure out Damien’s motive.
• Just as Rob is about to lock Damien away for the night, he realizes Cassie has been interrogating Rosalind.
• Cassie calls him that night but Rob hangs up on her.
• The next day, O’Kelly calls Rob into his office and calls him by his real name. He knows everything and is furious. Rob is no longer allowed to have any major part in the case.
• Rob immediately goes and accuses Cassie of exposing him and she is angry. She plays the tape of her session with Rosalind from the previous night and it was actually Rosalind who said it, not her. She also claims Rob told her himself.
• Cassie tries to cover it up and say he was lying.

• Rob feels awful for accusing Cassie
• Sam and Cassie now take the lead on the case since Rob is no longer allowed.
• They get Damien to confess the story: He met Rosalind at a “Move the Motorway” campaign and fell in love with her. They had been dating for a while and she began telling him of the awful things her father would do to her and her sisters: breaking their skulls, throwing them into walls, and sexually abusing them. She said Katy was the favorite and would lie all the time to see her and Jessica get hurt (They know this is all lies based off medical records). Damien suggested running away together, but Rosalind did not want to leave Jessica. Damien then wanted to kill Jonathan, but Rosalind believed killing Katy would be better. Damien thought it was self-defense, protecting Rosalind and Jessica from her. So, he lured her into the shed with promises of a new locket that would help her with her dancing.
• Cassie then believes Rosalind is a psychopath and wants to investigate her further. She comes up with the idea of talking to Rosalind one-on-one with a hidden wire and trying to get her to confess. Since she’s 18, neither parent is needed.
• Cassie gets Rosalind to come out of her house and on a walk by pretending to be in love with Rob and baiting her with secrets to make her feel superior. Rosalind confesses

to it all, from poisoning Katy to manipulating Damien, whom she never cared for. Cassie tries to arrest her and the two fight, but Rob and the others break it apart by jumping out of their nearby listening van. They take Rosalind back to the station but once she is in the interrogating room she brings up the minors need to have a parent present. Turns out, she had lied to Rob about her age and was only 17, so everything she said was inadmissible.
• Damien is found guilty
• Rosalind is let off because her parents believe she never did anything she said and Rosalind charms the courtroom
• Rob ruined his and Cassie’s relationship
• He is demoted and taken off the Murder Squad
• Cassie becomes engaged to Sam
• Jessica tried to kill herself
• Jonathan admits to knowing it was Rosalind all along to Rob
• The motorway is built where it was planned.
• The 1984 case is never solved.