cover image Far Cry

Far Cry

John Harvey, . . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Penzler, $26 (500pp) ISBN 978-0-547-31594-2

Det. Sgt. Helen Walker and Det. Insp. Will Grayson hunt for a missing girl in this worthy sequel to Gone to Ground from Cartier Diamond Dagger–winner Harvey. In 1995, pubescent Heather Pierce and her friend Kelly Efford disappear while on holiday in Cornwall. An eccentric Good Samaritan saves Kelly; searchers find Heather dead at the bottom of an old mining engine house, the apparent victim of a misstep in the fog. In present-day Cambridge, Heather's half-sister, Beatrice, who's about the same age as Heather was in 1995, vanishes. Is Heather's tragic history repeating itself, or is Beatrice the victim of something even darker? While Walker examines Heather's still unresolved death for a link to Beatrice's disappearance, Grayson becomes obsessed with a recently released pedophile, whom he suspects of committing terrible, undetected crimes. Harvey isn't afraid to let his characters grow in this thoughtful, complex thriller. (June)