CLOSER THAN YOU KNOW

The second case for Tennessee freelance investigator Vera Mae Boyett is both more and less than a sequel.

A series of bizarre kidnappings introduces the Time Thief, who’s drugged and abducted three victims, held each of them for 48 hours, and then released them unharmed in remote locations. The disappearance of Nolan Baker, a local reporter who’s been following the case hoping to strike it big, moves Vera’s first love, Lincoln County Sheriff Gray Benton, to pass along an urgent message from Nolan’s mother. Elizabeth Bogus Baker has overcome her disdain for Vera—who, along with her sister, Eve, has long harbored unsavory family secrets—long enough to plead with her to find Nolan and bring him home. Hardly has the search begun when Vera begins to get messages eerily reminiscent of taunting notes she received from the Messenger, a serial killer she brought to book 13 years ago after he captured her and her then–Memphis PD colleague Lt. Eric Jones. Dr. Palmer Solomon, the psychiatrist who confessed to being the Messenger, has been aging in prison ever since and is now dying of cancer. But the spate of new messages, along with other details of Nolan Baker’s kidnapping, so completely echoes his earlier M.O. that Vera must face the unnerving question of whether the recent crimes are the work of a copycat or an accomplice of the Messenger. Webb, who’s much more interested in multiplying than resolving complications, unmasks a minor-league perp and then quickly moves on to supply more details about the Boyetts’ family history, plunge Vera and Eve into mortal danger, and reveal the identity of the killer, who despite the title, is not someone closer than you think.

Generic thrills for fans who don’t want to look too closely.