The Wolf Wants In

March 1, 2019

Having sailed out of the gate with the award-winning The Weight of Blood and Sunday Times best-selling Arrowood, McHugh brings us Sadie Keller, investigating her brother's death in rundown Blackwater, KS. Inspired by the sudden death of the author's brother.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2019
In a small, dead-end Kansas community devastated by the opioid epidemic, two young women grapple with dark family secrets. It has been less than a month since Sadie Keller's 36-year-old brother, Shane, died suddenly, but Sadie can't get straight answers as to the exact cause of his death. His widow, Crystle, is evasive, claiming she came home and found Shane unresponsive. An impatient Detective Lacey Kendrick is equally unhelpful, noting that the coroner had ruled natural causes, possibly a heart attack, based on some prescriptions found at the scene. She has no time to investigate further because the recent discovery of a child's skull in the woods may be connected to Macey Calhoun, who vanished with her father the previous spring. Besides, untimely deaths are all too common in Cutler County, Kansas, thanks to the drug crisis. Sadie must now delve into her brother's private life for answers. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Henley Pettit is desperate to escape her disreputable family and limited future in Blackwater. But her addict mother has relapsed after two years of sobriety, and a housekeeping job with the wealthy Sullivans entangles Henley in a complicated relationship with spoiled only son Jason. Alternating between Sadie's first-person narration and Henley's third-person perspective, McHugh's (Arrowood, 2016, etc.) domestic thriller links the two storylines when the Calhoun case becomes a double homicide with a possible connection to Shane's death. Although terrible crimes lie at the heart of this novel, it is more sorrowful portrait of troubled families than gripping suspense; the culprits are obvious early on. Still, readers will become invested in the struggles of the well-drawn lead protagonists; the stoic and resourceful Henley will especially remind Daniel Woodrell fans of Ree Dolly, the heroine of Winter's Bone. Inspired by the still-unresolved sudden death of McHugh's brother, this third novel is atmospheric grit lit with emotional depth.

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Starred review from June 24, 2019
In this intelligent thriller set in the opioid-ravaged town of Blackwater, Kans., from McHugh (Arrowood), Sadie Keller and her sister, Becca, are desperate to know why their normally healthy brother, Shane, suddenly died. They suspect Shane’s new wife, Crystle, and her relatives, the drug-dealing Pettits, are to blame. The Blackwater police have closed the case and are now preoccupied with a missing girl whose skull may have been found in the woods. Across town, 18-year-old Henley Pettit knows she will always be tainted by the “knotted threads of her family’s misdeeds” if she stays in Blackwater. She worries her clandestine relationship with the scion of Blackwater’s wealthiest man will further trap her. Henley desperately wants to start a new life anywhere else, away from her often-missing opioid-addicted mother and the crimes of her uncles. Elegant plotting, finely honed character studies, and lyrical prose draw the women’s lives closer as Sadie and Henley deal with their own small-town ennui. This emotionally resonant tale will also appeal to literary-fiction readers. Agent: Sally Wofford-Girand, Union Literary.