JACKAL

Someone—or something—is hunting Black girls in this Appalachia-set debut.

In 2017, Liz Rocher—32, Black, and newly single—reluctantly revisits her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, for the wedding of her White best friend, Melissa Parker. Though Melissa's racist family tolerates Liz, they oppose Melissa marrying Garrett Washington, who is Black, though the couple has a 9-year-old daughter, Caroline. After the ceremony, Liz takes a break from watching Caroline and her cousins play outside to get a drink and flirt with the bartender. When she returns, Caroline is gone. Liz combs the surrounding woods but finds only a bloody scrap of Caroline's dress. The reception becomes a search party, which also turns up nothing. Some assume Caroline wandered off and got lost, but Liz can't help but remember Keisha Woodson—a Black classmate who vanished 15 years ago and was then found with her heart missing and her guts strewn about. Authorities claimed Keisha died from "a very bad fall compounded by animal activity," but according to Keisha's mother, each June for the past three decades a Black girl has disappeared, with little attention paid by the media or police. Every recovered corpse is absent a heart. Determined to stop the cycle, Liz launches her own investigation, unwittingly making herself a target. Chapters narrated by an initially unidentified being memorialize previous victims. Paranoia mounts and suspects multiply as Liz realizes the depth and breadth of Johnstown’s bigotry. The tale’s crime and supernatural elements don’t quite mesh, but plentiful twists, keenly rendered characters, and atmospheric prose keep the pages turning.

Harrowing horror with a side of searing social commentary.