Silence on Cold River

March 9, 2020
Dunn (the Hightower Trilogy) makes good use of the perspectives of multiple characters throughout her clever thriller debut. In 1989, in rural Tarson, Ga., rookie defense attorney Ama Shoemaker manages to get Michael Walton, a client charged with animal cruelty, acquitted, despite the mountain of evidence against him. Creeped out by Michael, Ama asks him to make sure that their paths never cross again, but Michael has other plans. In 2006, Ama is jogging near Tarson when she injures her ankle. A stranger offers to help her but then assaults and abducts her. Dunn wastes little time revealing that the stranger is actually Michael, and alternates Michael’s new encounter with Ama with the search for her conducted by Martin Locklear, a police detective seeking professional redemption, and Eddie Stevens, a man driven to consider suicide by the disappearance of his 18-year-old daughter. The various strands mesh well by the end. Fans of Lisa Unger will be pleased. Agent: Rosie Jonker, Ann Rittenberg Literary.

April 1, 2020
Something far more dangerous than a big, bad wolf inhabits the north Georgia woods. Dwelling within the woods' secret confines is a man who honed his skills in torture and human degradation by mutilating animals as a teenage boy. Years later, Ama Chapman, the lawyer who defended the boy on those charges, goes for a jog in the woods and doesn't come out. An odd assortment of people in a nearby town have also disappeared over time?most recently, a high-school student named Hazel Stevens, who was last seen headed onto a woodsy path. Although it has been a year and not a trace of her was found after an extensive search, her father perseveres. A new detective in town has reason to suspect a connection to one of his Atlanta cold cases. When Ama is eventually found, with clues indicating that Hazel is still alive, a new search in the treacherous wintry terrain begins. For fans of dark obsession in the tradition of The Silence of the Lambs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)