ALL THE LITTLE LIARS

A Georgia librarian’s first pregnancy is complicated by her brother’s kidnapping.

Just as Aurora Teagarden is ready to tell all the folks in Lawrenceton that she and brand-new husband Robin Crusoe are adding another new member to their family, Aurora's most recent addition, her half brother Phillip, disappears. It’s not the first time the teenager has pulled a vanishing act. He first turned up on Roe’s doorstep after running away from his California home (Night Shift, 2016), disgusted by his dad’s infidelity. Now that he’s finished a semester of state-sanctioned online instruction, he’s looking forward eagerly to joining his friends Joss and Josh Finstermeyer at the local high school. So why would Phillip and the Finstermeyer twins just take off with 11-year-old Liza Scott in tow? As the worried parents, George and Beth Finstermeyer and Emily and Aubrey Scott, converge on Roe, she retreats home, uncharacteristically devoid of coping strategies. Local police detectives Cathy Trumble and Levon Suit are stymied, even when Joss and Josh’s classmate Clayton Harrison also disappears. Discovering the body of Joss’ girlfriend, Tammy Ribble, does little to spur the police onward, as the investigation lurches sluggishly toward its foreseeable conclusion.

Reshelving periodicals would provide more joy than the latest adventure of Harris’ plucky librarian, which provides scant detection and none of the domestic details series readers crave.