Shadow Girl

June 26, 2017
At the start of Schmitt’s uneven second thriller featuring family liaison officer and single mom Afton Tangler (after 2016’s Little Girl Gone), a surface-to-air missile destroys a helicopter bringing a heart for transplant to the University of Minnesota Hospital. The authorities initially believe the strike was the work of terrorists, but the reader knows from the start that the killers were indirectly targeting against the heart’s intended recipient, Leland Odin, the owner of the Diamond Shopping Network. Who knew that the heart in the helicopter was destined for Odin? Afton and Det. Max Montgomery, of the Minneapolis PD, question the millionaire’s strangely distant wife and his bored teenage stepdaughter, along with Odin’s business partner and other associates, none of whom seems overly concerned about Odin’s health. Schmitt keeps the plot moving at a good clip, but Afton’s readiness to carry a gun and race into danger is at odds with her personal and professional obligations and is likely to leave the reader confused as to what her role is supposed to be. Agent: Sam Pinkus, Keystone Literary.

July 1, 2017
Afton Tangler, the star of this caffeinated thriller, is only a sort-of cop. A family liaison officer for the Minneapolis Police Department, she tries to console the families of crime victims. She has to endure snarky comments, as when someone calls her a crime victim's hand holder, and she doesn't get to carry a gun, forcing her, in one instance, to battle a bad guy while armed only with a long-handled rake. But she's on the case when, in a beautifully described scene, a helicopter is shot down like an angry demon cast out of the bowels of Hell. Afton and her mentor, Detective Max Montgomeryhe does carry a gunare nearby when the chopper crashes, and they begin asking questions. They uncover a plot that would do for two conventional cop novels, and its unraveling has a realistic hook: much depends on an auto decal a witness saw in passing. What's striking here are the departures from genre conventions. Montgomery, the male lead, is not a sexist oinker, and Afton's boss is not a nasty incompetent. Recommend as a classy procedural and nerve-jangling thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)