RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD

A tracer of missing children investigates a murder involving an outlaw motorcycle gang.

Atlanta Detective Richard Lake asks his girlfriend, Moriah Dru, owner of Child Trace (Murmurs of Insanity, 2014, etc.), to look into the unsolved three-year-old homicide of Juliet Trapp. The spoiled daughter of a wealthy family, Juliet had a history of taking off on wild adventures, and her involvement with the Wild Blood Motorcycle Club may have led to her death. Although her body was found, raped and murdered, near the club’s hangout, the police have never proved anything against them. Juliet’s missing father, Sherman, may have been reduced to the remains Dru discovers have been stolen from a Chattanooga crematorium. Dru’s only lead in Chattanooga, a Wild Blood girlfriend, has vanished. Since Juliet attended the Winters Farm Academy, Dru starts nosing around there and soon learns that some of Juliet’s relationships with the faculty were problematic. One of her two best friends was left a paraplegic by a riding accident during a wild, unapproved steeplechase Juliet planned. The other, Bunny Raddison, proves hard to find. Lake and Dru get permission to ride Lake’s Harley with the Wild Bloods to a gang convention in Florida. After Dru fatally shoots a wannabe biker trying to kill Wild Blood leaders at a Blood funeral, the gang agrees to help find Juliet’s killer. Dru’s mission is complicated by ambitious FBI agent Grady, who has a snitch in the gang. Grady follows the Bloods to Florida and seems to be trying to roll their case into his big investigation of outlaw bikers. While Dru and Lake desperately try to find Bunny, Dru’s computer specialist continues to dig for background. When Dru is nearly taken down by hired killers, she knows she must be getting close to the solution.

A heady mixture of thriller and mystery with so many red herrings that you’ll need a trawler to catch them all.