Darkness Lane

April 9, 2018
Journalist Geneva Chase, the flawed narrator of Kies’s entertaining sequel to 2017’s Random Road, once did stints at the nation’s top news organizations, but has worked her way down the career ladder to the point where she’s now an editor and crime reporter at the local paper in Sheffield, Conn., her hometown. The crime beat pulls her into two stories that at first seem straightforward but turn out to be quite complex. One of them involves the murder of a low-level thug by his abused wife; the other focuses on the disappearance of beautiful 15-year-old aspiring actress Bobbi Jarvis. The connection between the two stories keeps the plot humming. Chase’s life is further complicated by being the legal guardian of 15-year-old Caroline Bell (Bobbi’s best friend), by the potential loss of her job if her newspaper is sold, and by the struggle to control her drinking. Kies neatly balances breathless action with Chase’s introspection and sleuthing savvy. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron & Assoc.

April 1, 2018
A pair of complex cases confounds a dogged crime reporter and unsettles the small Connecticut town where she lives.When Betsy Caviness douses her dead-drunk husband, Jim, in gasoline and sets him on fire, recovering alcoholic Geneva Chase, who edits Sheffield's newspaper, feels more pity for the abused perp than the victim, who'd recently been arrested for trafficking minors for sex. Betsy's million-dollar bail is posted by a group called FOL, which stands for "Friends of Lydia," whose members freely acknowledge their secrecy, piquing Geneva's interest even more. Meanwhile, she's disturbed by the disappearance of Bobbi Jarvis, a high school sophomore who's the best friend of her ward, Caroline. Caroline's father, Kevin, who died tragically, was Geneva's lover (Random Road, 2017). What makes Bobbi's disappearance even more puzzling is that she'd recently been cast in a production with New York aspirations. At a local gas station, police discover closed-circuit video that shows Bobbi getting into a car owned by Jacob Addison, the school's drama club coach. Bobbi's parents are estranged, and the gambling addiction of her bisexual dad, Adam, has recently created serious financial problems. When Geneva tracks him down at his apartment, she makes a gruesome discovery. Could these two crimes possibly be connected? Multiple murders and shocking twists are key components in Geneva's ultimate uncovering of the truth.The flawed but dedicated heroine anchors Kies' second mystery with a compassion that compels readers to root for both justice and redemption.

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