An often engaging investigative-journalist mystery.
In McLaughlin’s novel, an intrepid reporter won’t rest until she uncovers the truth about her best friend’s disappearance.
In 1992, a Pennsylvania university makes headlines when a fire ravages the on-campus halfway house known as The Challenge, apparently killing 12 people—including Andrew Michaels, The Challenge’s charismatic leader. That same night, student reporter Kate McDonald vanished without a trace while looking into The Challenge and its possible connection to a recent murder; 24 years later, Kate’s best friend, Laura Cunningham, is still seeking answers. Now a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, she’s published Bloodstrains, a book about The Challenge, Kate’s disappearance, and the flawed investigation that followed. After Laura’s book galvanizes a new generation of student journalists to reexamine the case, new details emerge that could finally lead to a breakthrough. Teaming up with her ex-husband, Nick Fabrizzio, a detective who worked on the original investigation, Laura unravels a decades-old mystery, navigates her own family strife, and confronts old demons and new danger as she continues in her quest to learn what happened to Kate—and maybe even find her. Told through the perspectives of Laura and Nick, McLaughlin’s narrative jumps back and forth between 1992 and 2016, weaving a thrilling tale of crime and detective work with rapidly increasing stakes. Laura is a sympathetic protagonist whose mission for the truth is not only compelling but also echoes real-life cases of people seeking justice for loved ones and solving cold cases. Nick is a detective who refreshingly leans into compassion and shows an eagerness to correct his past mistakes. The missing-person plot provides an intriguing portrayal of investigative journalism that doesn’t shy away from the less exciting aspects of the job, such as the tediousness of going through public records. Despite occasional choppy dialogue and a few moments that will challenge readers’ suspension of disbelief, those who enjoy mysteries with a side of relationship drama will tear through this novel.
An often engaging investigative-journalist mystery.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781951967864
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Celestial Echo Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Enough clues, red herrings, and false endings to make readers feel that the Orient Express has put out to sea.
A luxury liner bound for New York in 1924 becomes the scene of a twisty golden age pastiche.
When an unnamed third-class passenger discovers the body of an elderly man at the bottom of an exterior flight of stairs aboard the Endeavour, Capt. McCrory insists it must be an accident. But James Temple, a Scotland Yard detective who just happens to be aboard, says that no one would have ventured to the outdoor steps in the rain without a coat, so the death should be treated as suspicious. Unable to stop Temple from investigating, McCrory assigns ship’s officer Timothy Birch to accompany him, and Birch promptly becomes the world’s most unwilling Dr. Watson, constantly battling Temple over theories and procedures. Anxious that they have only four days to find a potential killer before the ship docks and lets its 2,000 passengers roam free in New York, he’s especially infuriated at the leisurely pace marked by Temple’s bromide, “Facts before witnesses.” There’s reason to sympathize with Temple, because the suspects in first and second class (the only classes that matter in this ultra-class-conscious world) are cardboard cutouts—the successful banker, his trophy wife, the aspiring artists, the gallery owner—who are much less interesting than the secrets they’re hiding. In his most anachronistic development, author Hindle shows Birch, unlike the imperturbable sidekicks he echoes, sunk in grief over his vanished daughter, Amelia, and his estranged wife, Kate, who left him after Amelia disappeared during one of his ocean voyages. He’d do anything to get his daughter back, he tells Temple, and his determination leads to the biggest surprise of all.
Enough clues, red herrings, and false endings to make readers feel that the Orient Express has put out to sea.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9798217185740
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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