April 1, 2019
Forensic reconstructionist Rory Moore knows her odd quirks and obsessive habits are a strength when she's re-creating a crime, but when she investigates a 40-year-old serial-killer case, even she isn't sure she can handle what she's uncovering. Rory works for the Chicago Police Department, reconstructing homicides. She's so good at her work that Detective Ron Davidson not only tolerates her preferences (no touching, little eye contact, minimal social interaction), but allows her frequent breaks to recover from her total immersion in her work. One day Davidson asks Rory to meet with the father of a murdered young woman. Rory's calming hobby is repairing china dolls, and the father wants his daughter's doll repaired as a memento. But as Rory explores the woman's murder, she gets pulled into the case of The Thief, a suspected serial killer who murdered young women in Chicago in 1979. Then, after Rory's attorney father dies, she finds that he had been representing The Thief, who is about to be paroled. Alternating in time, the story follows Angela Mitchell, a woman with autism who becomes obsessed with studying the murders in 1979; and, in 2019, Rory, as one discovery leads to more surprises and questions. Donlea (Don't Believe It, 2018, etc.) so vividly describes the tension the two women feel that the reader stays tense, too, as the stories escalate. He's also so careful about describing his characters' particularities that neither woman is portrayed as bizarre (although the people around them may think they are) but rather highly intelligent, tormented women determined to find the truth. In Donlea's skillful hands, this story of obsession, murder, and the search for truth is both a compassionate character study and a compelling thriller.
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April 8, 2019
This engrossing novel from Donlea (Don’t Believe It) pits forensic reconstructionist Rory Moore against a smart serial killer. In Chicago in the summer of 1979, five young women disappear, all of them victims of a man known as the Thief. They’re presumed murdered, but their bodies are never found. Angela Mitchell, who has “a gift and a curse to remember everything she ever saw,” is able to identify the Thief
, but she goes missing before the police can question her. There’s enough evidence, however, to convict the Thief of Angela’s murder and send him to Illinois’s Stateville Correctional Center, where he’s a model prisoner. In 2019, the Thief is released on parole, and through circumstances beyond her control, Rory, a nonpracticing lawyer, becomes his attorney. Soon she’s immersed in trying to figure out exactly what happened to Angela. Donlea smoothly mixes red herrings and genuine clues. Notwithstanding some unanswered questions left hanging at the end, readers who relish a good puzzle will be rewarded. Agent: Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary.
May 1, 2019
Rory Moore is a forensic reconstructionist who uses her genius IQ and phenomenal attention to detail to reassemble crime scenes and the events that happened there. When her lawyer father dies, she's forced to dust off her law degree and represent one of his clients at a decades-delayed parole hearing. Researching the case, she finds parallels between herself and the inmate's alleged victim, Angela Mitchell, who disappeared in 1979, one of five Chicago women who were presumed abducted that summer. Angela was considered odd or fragile by her family and friends, but Rory recognizes the behaviors of an autistic woman trying to drown out the sounds of a distracting world. Part 1970s serial-killer thriller and part contemporary Chicago crime novel, this deceptively quick read has something for everyone. This is best-selling author Donlea's fourth novel (following Don't Believe It, 2018).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)