THE GIRLS SHE LEFT BEHIND

A case hits close to home both literally and figuratively for Maine deputy sheriff Lizzie Snow.

Life changes dramatically when, fueled by a tip that her long-missing 10-year-old niece, Nicki, may have been spotted near Bangor, Lizzie takes a job working for Sheriff Cody Chevrier in Aroostook County. Gone is her Boston high-rise overlooking the river. Gone are the nights of clubbing with pals. Here in Bearkill, a night out means a trip to Area 51, a local dive bar, with Trey Washburn, DVM, owner of Great North Woods Animal Care, or a dinner of donuts and diet Coke shared with Dylan Hudson, a fellow cop she used to date until she found out he was married. Lizzie gets a jolt when 15-year-old Tara, daughter of local firefighter Peg Wylie, goes missing. Tara’s disappearance is all too similar to Nicki’s abduction nine years ago. But Lizzie’s world is thrown completely out of kilter when Jane Crimmins turns up in Bearkill shortly after Tara drops out. The deputy remembers Jane from a discovery in New Haven that made headlines while Lizzie was still working in Boston. Three young women had been locked in a basement by sociopath Henry Gemerle. One of them was Cam Petry, Jane’s cousin. Gemerle was remanded to a forensic mental hospital after being deemed unfit for trial. But once he escapes, Lizzie has a hunch where he’s headed, and that hunch can only spell danger for Tara.

Although they’re also set in Maine, Graves’ Jacobia Tiptree and Ellie White cozies (A Bat in the Belfry, 2014, etc.) are a far cry from this tense and fast-paced tale of love gone horribly and fantastically wrong.