The Buried Girl

January 1, 2019
Montanari, author of the popular mystery series featuring Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano, takes some risks in his new stand-alone thriller, but they pay off. For quite a while, it looks like he's telling two entirely separate stories, one about a psychologist who uproots his daughter and moves to a rural community in the wake of his wife's murder, the other about a dedicated cop who's investigating the murders of some young girls. Eventually, long after we might expect them to, the stories link up, and the novel takes a frightening right-angle turn. The characterizations are robust and the dialogue is well done; the story drifts right up against the edge of implausibility, but we get the feeling that this is intentional, that the author knows exactly what he's doing every step of the way. An ambitious and memorable thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)