Trace of Evil

September 9, 2019
Set in Upstate New York, this gripping series launch from Blanchard (The Breathtaker) examines how violent secrets from the past resurface in a rural community. Det. Natalie Lockhart, a rookie cop, still struggles with the beating death of her older sister, Willow, 20 years earlier. Another sister, Grace, who’s raising a 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, urges Natalie to bury her memories and focus on the recent murder of schoolteacher Daisy Buckner. Meanwhile, Ellie is drawn to dark rituals that renew Natalie’s suspicions about Willow’s murder. The setting provides visual interest, and the resourceful, sympathetic Natalie drives the action. Blanchard occasionally undermines tension by relying heavily on subplots, a large number of extraneous characters, and misdirection. However, she delivers the goods in a sharp, if derivative, showdown between Natalie and the serial killer who crossed her path many years ago. Flush with red herrings, Wiccan symbols, and disaffected teens, this book will appeal to fans of criminal investigations led by empowered women. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Agency.

October 1, 2019
Detective Natalie Lockhart seeks to solve the brutal murder of a friend--which may connect to the slaying of her own sister 20 years earlier. Centuries ago, three women were executed for witchcraft in Burning Lake, New York. Perhaps because of this violent history, it's almost a rite of passage for Burning Lake teens to flirt with Wicca and darker forms of witchcraft. But when a high school teacher is found murdered in her home, the exploration doesn't seem quite so innocent, especially when a poppet, a kind of black magic voodoo doll, is found buried in the teacher's garden. Natalie can feel the dark influence everywhere; in addition to the murder investigation, she's been assigned to investigate the disappearances of nine transients over the past several years. When she discovers the desiccated corpses of tortured crows at more than one of the sites where the missing people were last seen, it becomes more and more obvious that there is something--or someone--dark and deadly at work in Burning Lake, someone who may even have been responsible for the murder of Natalie's own sister 20 years before and who hasn't stopped killing since. There are a number of crimes being investigated in this novel and a lot of movement between past and present, but for the most part, Blanchard (A Breath After Drowning, 2018, etc.) successfully navigates these complexities and keeps the reader, and the story, grounded with the appealing character of Natalie. Dogged, empathetic, courageous, and driven by her own childhood trauma, she leaves no stone unturned, even if it means investigating people she loves. Blanchard indicates this is the first of many Lockhart mysteries to come--good news! A fast-paced, intricate, and atmospheric mystery that introduces a plucky, engaging detective.

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October 1, 2019
As in Blanchard's A Breath after Drowning (2018), this first in the Natalie Lockhart series features a grieving sister trying to find the truth. Natalie, the daughter of a gritty beat cop, is a determined young police officer in an upstate New York town that has a decided other side of the tracks. In the past, a boy from that other side was convicted of killing Natalie's sister, Willow, and is still in prison as the book opens on Willow's deathiversary. Natalie meets her fellow officers after deathiversary celebrations, a night that ends in one officer's wife being found dead. One of the victim's students, obviously troubled, is an obvious suspect. What seems an open-and-shut case becomes much more, with Blanchard carefully peeling away layers of history and deception before pulling off a shocking twist. Lockhart is a relatable new heroine on the police-procedural scene, and one who will appeal to readers of Tana French.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2019

In this first in a new series from an author accomplished enough to claim Barnes & Noble Best Mystery honors and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, rookie detective Natalie Lockhart relies on lessons taught by her police chief father and her own impassioned commitment after her sister's murder as a teenager to solve cases and when necessary help anguished families find peace. After a day spent fruitlessly searching for nine missing transients, she drives a fellow cop home, where they find Daisy, his pregnant wife, dead. A likely suspect is Riley Skinner, a disaffected student, but he collapsed into a coma shortly after Daisy's death, and Natalie has lots of secrets to uncover.

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