February 3, 2020
Buffalo (N.Y.) PD patrol officer Shea O’Connor, the 23-year-old narrator of this engrossing mystery from Redmond (The Murder Book), has engaged in an undercover assignment for FBI agent Bill Walters that left her with emotional and physical scars. Bill now coerces her to work undercover in Kelly’s Falls, a town south of Buffalo, where three girls, all college freshmen, disappeared during Christmas break, leaving behind their purses, cellphones, and jackets. She poses as Shea Anderson, a college student who has supposedly come to live with her uncle, the police chief of Kelly’s Falls, after her parents died in a car accident. Shea immerses herself in the lives of the victims’ families and friends, but danger looms when her real and undercover identities begin to overlap. Her growing attraction to the brother of one of the missing girls raises the emotional stakes. Redmond, a former cold case homicide detective, skillfully doles out the plot twists. Fans of small-town police procedurals will be satisfied. Agent: Bob Mecoy, Creative Book Services.