This is a murder mystery investigation story. I didn't realize this was part of a series until I had started the book but that didn't matter. There was enough information to put the referenced previous events in context. ( )

This is the first book by the author I've read and won't be the last. There are plenty of things for readers to ponder, many from a long time ago, others very fresh. The connection between them starts with the abduction and subsequent killing of a podcaster who specializes in true crime. He came to this remote part of Oregon, intent upon solving the murder of one teen, the almost murder of another, and the disappearance of three others, all occurring on a camping trip twenty years before.
If that wasn't enough for the law enforcement protagonists in the story, someone is intent upon destroying electrical substations by shooting their most vulnerable components with high powered rifles, threatening not only electricity, but communications in this remote area.
The way everything unfolds is done deftly, keeping the suspense level up there all the way to the end. If I have a quibble, it's that the event that set everything in motion twenty years ago doesn't strike me as severe enough to create what followed. That's a very minor issue as the book kept me engaged from page one to the end. ( )

This is book #5 in the Columbia River Series featuring FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick and her husband police chief Truman Daly. Murder investigation of a true-crime podcaster turns into an investigation of a 20 year old cold case.
The first half of the book felt a little slow, but the pace picked up nicely in the second half. The ending was breathtaking. There were couple of good twists, and I even guessed the last one. I really liked Mercy and Truman and their little found family. There was so much love and warmth in their interactions. It's refreshing to find a thriller where the main characters are actually happy in their lives.
I've not read the previous books in this series, but the author did a great job giving all the necessary background information. I don't feel like I missed anything. This book was actually so good that I want to read the series from the beginning.
Thank you NetGalley and Montlake for a copy of this book. ( )

A missing and murdered podcaster's death leads to reexamining the disappearance of five teenagers twenty years earlier. The podcaster's body was found in the same place as two of the missing teens. All three had had their throats slit and wrists bound before they were dumped. However, one of the two teens managed to live but was injured so severely that he couldn't recall what happened to him or his friends.

The difference with the podcaster's placement was the addition of a black taped X over his mouth.

Both Mercy and Truman are involved in the case though they came to it from different points. Truman gets involved when his soon-to-be-adopted son Ollie calls to tell him that he has discovered a woman running for help while he was snowmobiling in the wilderness. She needs to let someone know that her podcaster husband has disappeared and that the lower floor of the cabin they were renting was full of blood.

Mercy is called to the river shore when the podcaster's body was found and was told by a spectator about the crime twenty years earlier. She was called in by Noelle Marshall, a sheriff's deputy that she's worked with before.

As they investigate both the current murder and the twenty-year-old crime, they discover that the survivor is Devin Bonner and go to interview him. They learn that he suffers from face blindness which makes everyone a stranger and has made him a recluse who lives with his mother. When his mother is attacked and almost killed, Ollie befriends him and wants to stay with him to help him out until his mother recovers.

But the killing hasn't stopped and efforts to involve Devin hasn't stopped either. The podcaster's missing jeep shows up outside the Bonner home and another podcaster's body is dumped outside of the motel room where Ollie and Devin are staying.

This story was filled with tension and twists and turns. I found it totally engaging and couldn't put it down until every detail had been figured out. I liked seeing Truman, Mercy and Ollie again in this fifth book in a series. I love the relationship between them all. ( )