The Girl in the Woods

April 23, 2018
In the prologue of this carefully plotted novel of psychological suspense from MacDonald (Don’t Believe a Word), 13-year-old Blair Butler is playing with her best friend, 12-year-old Molly Sinclair, at the Yorktown, Pa., home of Blair’s uncle Ellis, with whom Blair and her older sister, Celeste, have lived since their mother’s death eight years earlier. When Molly defends Blair’s desire to go to computer summer camp, which Ellis says he can’t afford, he gets angry and orders the girl to go home. She never makes it. Some 15 years later, Celeste is dying of cancer, and Blair, now the owner of a successful computer firm in Philadelphia, returns to Yorktown to say goodbye. When the women are alone, Celeste confesses to Blair that she didn’t come forward to provide an alibi for Adrian Jones, who was convicted of Molly’s murder, and she asks her sister to tell the authorities and gain Jones’s release from prison. Blair’s attempts to free Jones stir up a nest of sinister secrets that lie beneath Yorkville’s placid surface. Fans of thrillers set in small-town America will be rewarded. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency.

May 1, 2018

Fifteen years ago, Blair Butler's best friend Molly Sinclair was driven from Blair's house by her angry uncle and later found dead in the woods. Now Blair's terminally ill sister, Celeste, confesses that the man convicted of Molly's murder was innocent because he was with Celeste at the time. The authorities do not believe Celeste's alibi, and having made a promise to her sister, Blair now must prove a man's innocence while hunting a killer in a cold case that still haunts survivors. Featuring a convincing, well-developed heroine, a twisted villain, and a menacing atmosphere, MacDonald's (Don't Believe a Word) absorbing thriller ratchets up the drama and chilling tension. VERDICT Fans of Ruth Ware and Tami Hoag won't be able to put down this intense novel of psychological suspense.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2018
A woman's determination to use her dying sister's confession to exonerate an innocent man brings her into the eye of danger.Blair Butler has returned to her hometown in the Poconos to say goodbye to her older sister, Celeste, who's in the final days of hospice care. Focused on understanding Celeste's plans for her 10-year-old son, Malcolm, and making sure their Uncle Ellis doesn't somehow get custody, Blair is blindsided by a shocking deathbed confession. Celeste admits she lied about facts surrounding the murder of Blair's childhood best friend, Molly Sinclair, whose body was found in the local woods. Celeste could have given Adrian Jones an alibi if she hadn't been scared to admit to being with a black boy while she was being raised in a household in which Uncle Ellis proudly displayed his Nazi memorabilia. Blair promises to investigate but doesn't know where to start. Adrian, now known as Yusef Muhammed, was convicted of Molly's murder and has been in prison for years. He's unimpressed with Blair's promise to seek the truth and free him, and he shuts down her pose as his potential savior when he's known he was innocent the whole time. Blair turns for help to a childhood acquaintance, disgraced news personality Rebecca Moore, even though Rebecca makes it clear that only the promise of professional accolades will get her involved. Blair's last hope is cop-turned-private investigator Tom Olson, but when his initial inquiries raise the stakes dangerously, that hope is crushed. Even so, Blair's still a fighter, and she's determined that the truth will prevail, though her own efforts in an ongoing investigation may bring her up against the same peril that destroyed Molly.MacDonald (Don't Believe a Word, 2016, etc.) scores once again with an apparently hopeless quest for justice even if her climactic chapters veer into a rehash of Emma Donoghue's Room.

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May 1, 2018
Home after a lengthy absence to visit her dying sister, Blair Butler discovers that the person who murdered her best friend 15 years ago might still be living in the area and that the wrong man was convicted of the crime?and that her sister deliberately lied to the police, knowing it might put an innocent man behind bars. But who is the real killer? MacDonald, who has published nearly 20 novels since the early 1980s, writes gripping suspense with strong, resilient female lead characters; fans of Joy Fielding or Mary Higgins Clark who haven't yet discovered MacDonald should make a point to seek her out.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)