The Long Remembered Thunder by Keith Laumer

A government technician arrives in the quiet town of Elsby chasing a hidden transmitter that is disrupting a top-secret hyperwave project, but the signal leads him into a far stranger puzzle than espionage alone. Jimmy Tremaine discovers that the interference seems to echo from multiple points at once, and his search soon points toward Mr. Bram, a long-lived outsider whose name has haunted local memory for decades. As Tremaine digs through town records, old newspapers, and wary testimony, he uncovers a history shaped by rumor, prejudice, and buried scandal. Bram was once linked to schoolteacher Linda Carroll, was feared as foreign and uncanny, and lived in isolation near the river and in the hills, where townspeople claimed he vanished from sight at sundown. Miss Carroll adds another unsettling layer, recalling Bram's warnings about nightly battles with evil in a cave beneath his house, a mysterious locket, and his fear of thunder. But the mystery turns violent when Tremaine and Jess find Bram's house burned, bloodied, and empty. Local boys admit to attacking it amid talk of spies and foreigners, while police and townsmen close in on Tremaine himself. With pressure from superiors, suspicion from the authorities, and danger from Elsby's own people, Tremaine must untangle a case where science, superstition, and small-town hatred collide. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.