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good use of the perspectives of multiple
characters throughout her clever thriller
debut. In 1989, in rural Tarson, Ga., rookie
defense attorney Ama Shoemaker manages
to get Michael Walton, a client charged
with animal cruelty, acquitted, despite
the mountain of evidence against him.
Creeped out by Michael, Ama asks him to
make sure that their paths never cross again,
but Michael has other plans. In 2006, Ama
is jogging near Tarson when she injures
her ankle. A stranger offers to help her but
then assaults and abducts her. Dunn wastes
little time revealing that the stranger is
actually Michael, and alternates Michael’s
new encounter with Ama with the search
for her conducted by Martin Locklear, a
police detective seeking professional
redemption, and Eddie Stevens, a man
driven to consider suicide by the disap-
pearance of his 18-year-old daughter. The
various strands mesh well by the end. Fans
of Lisa Unger will be pleased. Agent: Rosie
Jonker, Ann Rittenberg Literary. (May)
Bombshell
Stuart Woods and Parnell Hall. Putnam, $28
(320p) ISBN 978-0-593-08325-3
Set in Hollywood, bestseller Woods and
Edgar finalist Hall’s brisk fourth Teddy
Fay novel (after 2019’s Skin Game) finds
former CIA operative Teddy alternating
between two identities. A few minutes
applying makeup and putting on a wig
transforms Teddy from Billy Barnett, a
movie producer, to Mark Weldon, a
stuntman turned actor. This makes it dif-
ficult for gangster Gino Patelli, who blames
Billy for his uncle’s murder, and Gino’s
henchmen to locate Billy, who keeps dis-
appearing on the set of a new movie fea-
turing actresses Viveca Rothschild (aka
the Blonde Bombshell) and Tessa Tweed.
Viveca and Tessa have become friendly, but
they’re also competing against each other
at the Academy Awards. The stakes rise
when Viveca’s boyfriend, an Afghan war
veteran with PTSD, murders a gossip
columnist Viveca has a problem with, and
it becomes clear that more than one villain
is plotting violence at the Oscars ceremony.
Readers will cheer as Teddy thwarts anyone
who dares to try to kill him. Realism isn’t
the authors’ strong point, but they know
how to tell a fun, exciting story. Agent:
Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit. (May)
The Burden of Truth
Neal Griffin. Forge, $27.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-
7653-9562-7
Straight-A student Omar Ortega, the
18-year-old hero of this solid standalone
from Griffin (the Newberg mysteries),
plans to join the army after he graduates
from his Vista, Calif., high school. He
expects his wages and his savings will get
his mother and 16-year-old sister, Sofia,
and 13-year-old brother, Hector, into a nice
house and out of the barrio where they have
been since his father was deported. Omar
has managed to stay away from gang life,
and keep Sofia and Hector safe. One night,
Chunks Gutierrez, newly released from
prison, forces Omar to ride with him and
two members of his gang in his car.
Someone fires a gun from the car, killing
a cop, and Omar is later arrested for the
crime. Griffin sensitively explores Omar’s
plight as he’s labeled a cop killer, and the
emotional growth of police officer Travis
Jackson, who at first is convinced Omar is
guilty, but comes to realize the evidence
points to another culprit. The tense
denouement is incredibly sad, but realistic.
Fans of contemporary police procedurals
will be satisfied. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra
Dijkstra Literary. (May)Sister Dear
Hannah Mary McKinnon. Mira, $17.99 trade
paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-7783-0955-0
Eleanor Hardwicke, the 29-year-old
narrator of this dreadful and depressing
psychological thriller from McKinnon
(Her Secret Son), grew up in Portland, Maine,
with an emotionally abusive mother, a sister
who hated her, a face and body she disliked,
and a general aversion to people. Her one
good relationship has been with her father,
who shortly before his death reveals a
secret—he isn’t her real father. Crushed
that her father and only friend is gone,
Eleanor looks up her biological father, Stan
Gallinger. Stan rejects her and warns her
not to get near his wife or daughter,
Victoria, who’s her two months’ younger
half-sister. Desperate to make a meaningful
human connection, Eleanor worms herself
into Victoria’s life without revealing her
true identity and, thinking they are best
friends, gets pulled into Victoria’s dark
and vicious world with disastrous results.
Despite Eleanor’s emotional baggage and
pitiful history, few will care about her fate.No one wins in this story, especially the
reader. Agent: Carolyn Forde, Transatlantic
Agency. (May)★ Archie Goes Home:
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Robert Goldsborough. Mysteriouspress.com,
$16.99 trade paper (248p) ISBN 978-1-5040-
5988-6
Goldsborough’s first-rate Nero Wolfe
mystery (after 2019’s Death of an Art
Collector) deepens Rex Stout’s characters
by extrapolating from the original novels’
few clues to paint a plausible portrait of
Archie Goodwin’s unnamed Ohio home-
town. Archie’s aunt, Edna Wainwright,
alerts him to a suspicious death there.
Octogenarian banker Logan Mulgrew was
found dead in
his home, an
apparent suicide,
but Edna
believes that
Mulgrew, who
had enemies in
the area, may
have been mur-
dered. That
belief is
strengthened
after someone fires a gun at the apartment
of a journalist who wrote a column ques-
tioning whether Mulgrew took his own life.
Archie uses a trip home to visit his mother
as an opportunity to indulge his aunt’s
curiosity and look into those wronged
enough by Mulgrew to have a motive to
kill him. Goldsborough doesn’t strike a
false note, an impressive feat given the
sparse information about Archie’s back-
ground that Stout provided. This clever
pastiche will enthrall Stout fans. Agent:
Erik Simon, Martha Kaplan Agency. (May)The Secret of Bones
Kylie Logan. Minotaur, $26.99 (336p)
ISBN 978-1-250-18059-9
Logan’s appealing sequel to 2019’s The
Scent of Murder finds Jazz Ramsey, whose
day job is administrative assistant at St.
Catherine’s Preparatory Academy for Girls
in Cleveland, training her Airedale puppy,
Wally, to become a cadaver dog and sniff
out dead bodies for the police. Jazz gets
pressed into giving the students a cadaver
dog demonstration on career day at
St. Catherine’s, but what should have been