Talk about a mind-bender. This new suspense by author Amy Engel swiftly draws you in to one mystery layered upon another. A small-town thriller with a unique spin on how guilt can be a disturbing bedfellow.

When Greer Dunning decides to take an extended break from her school counseling job in Chicago, she doesn’t go on a holiday. Rather, she goes back to her small hometown of Ludlaw, Kansas. A copycat murder has the town shook. But for Greer, this is more than upsetting. The killer has followed the same pattern of the man who’d murdered her sister.

Once she arrives, she falls back into the obsession of understanding what motivated Roy Matthews to murder her beloved sister Eliza and her boyfriend Travis. The latest copycat case proves her theory—there’s more behind Eliza’s murder than meets the eye. Though Roy Matthews had confessed, was convicted, and received the death penalty, there were too many holes in the case for Greer.

Before she left for Chicago, she’d built a reputation as the young woman pestering everyone, including the local law, for answers. Now, she’s back and her two best friends warn her not to go down the same path. It doesn’t work. She forms a secret, and unexpected, alliance with the one person who believes she may be on to something—Roy’s brother, Dean Matthews.

Dean never left Ludlow, despite being treated like an outcast. Living a quiet life, he’s kept his head down, but never gave up the idea that someone had pushed his brother to the brink of murder. With time nipping at their heels, and old and new clues being unearthed, Greer and Dean are on a mission to uncover Roy’s motive and find the copycat killer.

I love a good suspense, especially one peppered with twists and turns and trust me this one does just that.

All characters, including the protagonist, have secrets that are slowly unearthed throughout the plot, while others are a surprising antithesis of their expected arc. It’s not a long read, probably because you’ll want to keep on until you uncover the what, who, and why behind the chilling murders in this sleepy little midwestern town.

Book and Image Courtesy of Dutton, Plume, Tiny Reparations ~ Penguin Random House