Publisher's Weekly Review
Soon after Mobile, Ala., event coordinator Jori Trahan, the resourceful narrator of this unsettling psychological thriller from Herbert (Cold Waters), returns home to Bayou Enigma in Alabama swamp country to care for her cognitively impaired grandmother and autistic brother, Zach, she runs into Ray Strickland, recently released from prison after serving some 20 years for murder, in a bar. Ray's drunken mumblings ("folks have a way of disappearing 'round here, gator feed") start Jori on a relentless crusade to solve the unsolved disappearance of her high school sweetheart, Deacon Cormier, and his family 13 years earlier in 2006. Jori has a form of synesthesia that allows her to "hear" colors, and it becomes her secret weapon in discovering what happened the night the Cormiers went missing. Jori's snooping reveals family secrets best left unspoken, and also draws the attention of a killer. The stakes rise after Zach is kidnapped. Herbert keeps the reader guessing as to the killer's identity. Those with a taste for Southern gothic will be satisfied. Agent: Ann Leslie Tuttle, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
Herbert moves on from Normal, Alabama, to nearby Enigma, but keeps her unrelenting focus on Southern gothic, family-style. No sooner has Ray Strickland, just released from prison, returned to Enigma for his mother's funeral than Jori Trahern, running into him at a local bar, trash-talks him for killing her cousin, Jackson, and a bunch of guys start throwing punches at him and threaten to kill him. Next morning they get their wish when he's found shot to death in his mother's house. Jori is especially distressed because Ray had denied killing Jackson, because a passing remark by her grandmother reveals that Jackson was actually adopted as a baby, and because a fresh discovery links Ray to the Cormier family, who disappeared without a trace 13 years ago. As the person who entered the Cormier house and found it deserted, dinner still in the oven, shortly before Deacon Cormier was supposed to escort her to their high school prom, Jori has been close to the edge ever since, and caring for her increasingly forgetful grandmother and her brother, Zach, who has severe autism, hasn't made her life any easier. Flipping between Jori's viewpoint and that of rookie Eric County investigator Tegan Blackwell, who's recovering from a troubled childhood of her own, Herbert steadily multiplies acts of violence and betrayal as she knits the new crime closer and closer together with the old. More tellingly, she gradually deepens both heroines' horror at discovering just how low the people who disparage outsiders and newcomers as "not one of us" are willing to go to preserve their privilege. Another dispatch from Enigma would be welcome, though it's hard to see what else Herbert could burn down next time. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.