In Tessa Wegert's Death in the Family, Shana Merchant used to be a police detective in NYC, until she was abducted by the serial killer she was hunting. After being held for a week she was rescued, but the subsequent PTSD ended her career in the city.
Now she works as an investigator in the Thousand Islands region of upstate New York, and only her boss knows what happened to her on her old job. And while her fiancé thinks she’s not ready to be in the thick of a crime scene, she’s determined to prove it to everyone—including herself.
She and her partner get called to a wealthy private island, where a young man has gone missing. Blood at the scene indicates he was harmed and could be dead, but where could he be? Could he have somehow gotten off the island? Is this a disappearance or a murder?
All of the man’s family and friends who were staying at their mansion are on edge, and more than happy to point suspicion at someone else. And with a powerful nor’easter wreaking havoc, Shana and her partner could be stuck on the island with a murderer who has nowhere to escape to.
But as she tries to make sense of the lies and double-crosses, Shana also has to deal with the flashbacks that the stress of the crime scene are triggering. Is she really ready to be back in this job? Can she trust her partner not to pity her if she tells him about what happened to her in NUC? And more importantly, is there a killer that they must protect the rest of the family—and themselves—from?
I thought this was a great, intense mystery with lots of twists and turns. It’s the locked-room mystery I’d been hoping for after reading some pretenders and Shana’s struggles kept this fascinating and compelling. You’re not sure whom to trust, but everyone is pretty hateful! Wegert really did a great job with this story.
I’ll be buying the second book in the series immediately! (Update: I bought it this afternoon.)
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