An often engaging investigative-journalist mystery.
In McLaughlin’s novel, an intrepid reporter won’t rest until she uncovers the truth about her best friend’s disappearance.
In 1992, a Pennsylvania university makes headlines when a fire ravages the on-campus halfway house known as The Challenge, apparently killing 12 people—including Andrew Michaels, The Challenge’s charismatic leader. That same night, student reporter Kate McDonald vanished without a trace while looking into The Challenge and its possible connection to a recent murder; 24 years later, Kate’s best friend, Laura Cunningham, is still seeking answers. Now a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, she’s published Bloodstrains, a book about The Challenge, Kate’s disappearance, and the flawed investigation that followed. After Laura’s book galvanizes a new generation of student journalists to reexamine the case, new details emerge that could finally lead to a breakthrough. Teaming up with her ex-husband, Nick Fabrizzio, a detective who worked on the original investigation, Laura unravels a decades-old mystery, navigates her own family strife, and confronts old demons and new danger as she continues in her quest to learn what happened to Kate—and maybe even find her. Told through the perspectives of Laura and Nick, McLaughlin’s narrative jumps back and forth between 1992 and 2016, weaving a thrilling tale of crime and detective work with rapidly increasing stakes. Laura is a sympathetic protagonist whose mission for the truth is not only compelling but also echoes real-life cases of people seeking justice for loved ones and solving cold cases. Nick is a detective who refreshingly leans into compassion and shows an eagerness to correct his past mistakes. The missing-person plot provides an intriguing portrayal of investigative journalism that doesn’t shy away from the less exciting aspects of the job, such as the tediousness of going through public records. Despite occasional choppy dialogue and a few moments that will challenge readers’ suspension of disbelief, those who enjoy mysteries with a side of relationship drama will tear through this novel.
An often engaging investigative-journalist mystery.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781951967864
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Celestial Echo Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Middling for this stellar series, which makes it another must-read, preferably in one sitting.
Unbeknownst to each other, Wyoming Fish and Game Warden Joe Pickett and outlaw falconer Nate Romanowski embark on equally urgent pursuits that converge in a way neither of them suspects.
Nate, who’s been off the grid ever since his wife, Liv, was killed in a fire intended to kill him too in Three-Inch Teeth (2024), has sworn vengeance on murderous conspirator Axel Soledad. After shooting several of Soledad’s hirelings, he joins forces with his friend and fellow Special Forces vet Geronimo Jones, who’s tracked him down, to chase his quarry deep into the woods. Governor Spencer Rulon, meanwhile, has pressed Joe into service once again to find veteran hunting guide Spike Rankin and his new assistant, Mark Eisele, who just happens to be Rulon’s son-in-law. Although nobody’s heard from the men for two days, the governor doesn’t want his wife and daughter to know they’re missing, and that means not alerting the media or the local sheriff, who’s no fan of Rulon’s anyway. Readers who’ve already seen Rankin and Eisele overpowered and imprisoned by a mysterious crew they ran into while they were setting up for the elk hunting season will assume that Soledad is behind their kidnapping as well. But Box will keep everyone guessing about exactly how Soledad and the ragtag military cult he’s gathered around him plan to confront the military-industrial complex he’s persuaded them is a clear and present danger. You know you’re in for a wild ride when Joe, saying goodbye to Marybeth, his long-suffering wife, promises her, “I’ll do my job and not cross the line.”
Middling for this stellar series, which makes it another must-read, preferably in one sitting.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593851050
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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