ANONYMOUS

A freelance San Diego insurance investigator thinking of expanding her practice sees her wish fulfilled when she’s stalked by a sex killer.

“Stop investigating me or I will hunt you down and kill you. BITCH. No police,” reads the note pinned to Madison Kelly’s front door. The threat is not only unsettling, but inaccurate, since Maddie’s between jobs and isn’t investigating anybody. But then she recalls that she’s been poking around informally in a case recently profiled on the podcast Crawlspace: the disappearances of Samantha Erickson after she left a bar in the Gaslamp District four years ago and of Elissa Alvarez after she left another bar two years later. Despite, or maybe because of, the message, Maddie doubles down in her efforts and soon finds Elissa’s cellphone near the parking lot where she was last seen—quite a coup considering that her friend Detective Thomas Clark, of San Diego Homicide, hasn’t found it himself during the past two years. As Maddie identifies suitably unsuitable men who might have done away with Samantha and Elissa, first-timer Breck, herself an insurance investigator, multiplies the suspicious men in Maddie's own orbit who just might be her stalker: her downstairs neighbor Ryan, a surfer in graduate school; her friend Dave Rich, who’s been her lover but never her boyfriend; Tom’s drinking buddy Ken Larrabee, who’s clearly interested in her; and Tom himself, who’s never enjoyed Maddie’s sexual favors even though his wife is convinced that he has.

Beneath all the expository passages beats a brave heart that deserves a sequel showing sharper sleuthing chops.