After a daily scroll on Netgalley I came across the 11^th Ellie Reeves novel by Rita Herron. I’ve read all the books from this series. Normally I buy them as soon as they are released so the fact that I got accepted to eARC read this one has made my day.

This book will be released on the 14^th of August, if you’re not familiar with this series you should definitely dive in ASAP.

Detective Ellie Reeves has been enjoying some quiet months; No major cases in the last months so she got to enjoy her time with now boyfriend Cord without having to divide her time. But no rest for the wicked as they say because a call has come in; a body has been found in Brambletown, a town close by that doesn’t have the same capacity as the station Ellie works.

The body or better yet skeletal remains are found in a deserted graveyard; while exhuming the body they also find one red shoe. A day later when Cord is grid searching the woods he stumbles upon a ravine, what he finds has him calling Ellie right away, a red scarf hangs in a bush nearby a piece of recently disturbed land. When the body is safely transported to the morgue and an ID has been made, one thing is getting painfully clear. There is a serial killer out here and a long missing girl in Brambletown might’ve been his first victim. When the body in the morgue is ID-ed as a missing girl they start their search.

With a suspect in mind; they set out to work. Earl Bramble has disappeared just after the first girl Ruth went missing 15 years prior; just before the police wanted him in for questioning, they haven’t seen him since. Leaving daughter Ida (17) and cousin Hetty behind to fend for themselves.
Kat; Ida’s now 15-year-old daughter found her diary stored on an old laptop and started reading about the abuse her mother and aunt had to endure, each entry getting more gruesome then the last.

*sigh* oh Cord, what did you do?!

Since the beginning of this case Ellie feels Cord slipping through her fingers, he has become more withdrawn. She gets the feeling he’s keeping a big secret from her and it has to do with this case, but what is it? And why won’t he trust her enough to just tell her?

With some flashback stories throughout this book and the diary entries you get to read you really start to think you know who this killer is, but in the end… After even considering the sheriff as being the culprit… you’ve come to the conclusion that you don’t know diddly.

This book has kept me guessing, kept me wondering and was so good I just couldn’t put it down. I had to know who it was, how this story ends and I’m so happy I get to say that it really did not disappoint.

A solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐!!!!! stars