HALF-TOLD TRUTHS

In Lewis’ sequel thriller, a woman on the run finds danger in a new town and common ground with her ex-cop employer.

Kim Jackson fled Chicago and took on a new identity after her former boss tried to frame her for embezzlement; for a time, she lived in tiny Montrose, Colorado, where she got involved in a murder investigation. Now she’s making a living in the Rocky Mountain town of Durango as a part-time bookkeeper and a live-in housekeeper for wheelchair-bound former cop Lena Fallon (“an unrelenting dark storm of anger, a broken soul locked in a broken body”). Kim soon realizes, however, that it’s hard to escape the people in her past. While Kim is aware of Lena’s former profession, she’s unsure of the circumstances surrounding her departure from the force. Though the two women maintain a tempestuous rapport (“She and I are not and never will be friends,” says Kim at one point), they slowly discover that they can help each other come to terms with their private struggles. At the same time, they get mixed up in the affairs of wealthy Paul Kennerly, the great-grandson of a Colorado land baron and city councilman. As Kim begins to unravel under the constant pressure of living the life she’s chosen, she and Lena try to get to the bottom of crimes that changed their lives forever. Lewis delivers a fast-paced, tightly written mystery with two strong and convincing main characters who find a connection due to dark events in their pasts. It’s not for nothing that the author reminds readers that “every person walking this planet, bar none, has a secret,” as Lena says. Throughout, the author illuminates the action with vivid, atmospheric descriptions of the Colorado setting, as when she notes that the “San Juan Mountains inked a purple-black silhouette across the sky. The world had a profound stillness, carved beneath a milky-white canopy of stars.”

An engaging and suspenseful mystery team-up.