THE VILLAGE

A true-crime writer who can’t forget an unsolved case she covered 10 years ago moves to the place where it all happened. It’s not a good move.

As far as anyone knows, nothing much has changed for Martin and Susan Harper and their 8-year-old daughter, Grace, in the decade since their disappearance. But lots of changes have come into Naomi Ward’s life. She’s stopped writing the “True Crime Detective” stories that appeared under the byline Marsha Bowers. She’s watched Scottish film producer/director Edward Ward’s struggles with Harmony, his drug-addled wife, and married him shortly after they divorced and Harmony ran off to Europe with Joel, her dealer. She’s done her best to mother Ed’s daughter, Morgan, who at 16 is only 12 years younger than her and clearly not having any. And now she’s persuaded Ed to move with her from London to the New Forest town of Nighbrook, memorialized by guidebooks as the least friendly village in England, and into Ivy Cottage, the home from which the Harpers vanished. It doesn’t take long for Naomi to realize that the house is less haunted than the village. Sgt. Lloyd Thomas, the local law, is always distant except when he’s actively menacing. His wife, Joanne, who first reported the Harpers missing, accuses Naomi of launching her new career as a baker by delivering a cake stuffed with maggots. And Dawn Humphries, who takes the pouting Morgan under her wing, is clearly playing a deeper game. The whole village is obviously covering up a dreadful secret—but what exactly is that secret?

Be warned: Mitchell keeps digging deeper even after the main mystery is solved for more and more nasty revelations.