WHERE THE RIVER RUNS RED

In veteran attorney Pollack’s legal thriller, a young lawyer works to exonerate her brother, a former high school athlete who was imprisoned for murder 15 years ago.

Chad Greer was a small-town basketball hopeful who, at age 17, was tried and convicted for the first-degree murder of his girlfriend, Megan Miller. After a decade and a half in prison, Chad still insists on his innocence, but his appeal for an early release is abruptly denied. His sister, Sawyer, a newly minted lawyer with the district attorney’s office, refuses to accept his fate and decides to look into his case with fresh eyes. She teams up with investigative journalist Mason Walcott, although she’s skeptical about his intentions; he claims to have been one of several kids hanging around Rainbow River, Florida, where the murder took place, and says that he wrote about Chad’s ordeal as it played out 15 years ago. Sawyer starts interviewing Chad’s former classmates, and before long, she’s dealing with threats on her life. These don’t prevent her from uncovering new evidence and testimony, though, which point to a coverup. Several key characters come into sharp focus, including Winston Marshall, whose father was the sheriff at the time of the crime. Things get even more complicated and dangerous before Sawyer’s diligent spadework starts paying off. Although Pollack’s book is novella length, it gets right to the heart of Sawyer’s investigation by using economical prose (“So let’s get right to it,” says Sawyer to Mason soon after they first meet. “What is it you want to tell me?”), clipped flashback scenes, DNA evidence, and tense plot turns. The story’s conclusion arrives after plenty of unexpected twists, past revelations, and frightening moments, and the villains effectively keep the main characters (and readers) on their toes. The final scene offers the sort of brisk and satisfying disentanglement that mystery readers expect and enjoy.

A serpentine and suspenseful mystery about innocence lost and found.