IN THE BONES

Wegert launches a new series exploring the seamy underside of Cape Vincent, a village in New York’s Thousand Islands.

It begins with a rash of inconsequential burglaries from vacation homes whose owners have just returned for the summer—a bikini and two pairs of jeans from one house, a bottle of wine and a jar of peanut butter from another. Although it’s hard for New York State Police Investigator Tim Wellington and his colleagues to take the outbreak seriously, things seem very serious indeed for housecleaner Nicole Durham, whose Realtor friend Stacy Peel has helped land a big fish new client, ex–hockey star Mikko Helle, who’s about to move into a princely place contractor Terry Martino has renovated for him. Like Mikko’s girlfriend, Eva Ki, Nicole hears suspicious sounds as she moves from room to room. Then she finds a message scrawled in the dust she’s cleaning: “I’m watching.” When Tim arrives and flushes out the intruder, who calls herself Jenny Smith, she leads them to an even creepier discovery in a secret compartment in the basement—the decaying body of another woman—before she disappears again. As Tim marshals his forces to track her down and find out what else she knows, Nicole struggles to put on a happy face for Blair and Alana, her teenage daughters, and Woody, the husband who’s jeopardized the family’s future by engaging in all kinds of questionable behavior that are slow to emerge. Wegert expertly casts suspicion on one character after the next, but the climactic reveal is likely to take even the canniest readers by surprise.

The piercing family melodrama and all-too-human detective provide deep roots for the mystery. Here’s to the promised sequels.