To Those Who Killed Me

Set in Vancouver, Canadian author Siemens’s grim and twisty debut, a series launch, introduces Sloane Donovan, a former cop with a bad reputation. Though successful as an undercover cop, Sloane compromised her career by criticizing the police for their negligence during the investigation into her sister’s death and was pressured into resigning. She now works as a personal trainer at a health club, and jogs in order to deal with her mental health issues. When she discovers a close friend, Geri Harp, dead from an apparent overdose, and a note by Geri condemning two undisclosed people as responsible for her demise, Sloane believes it’s murder staged to look like suicide. Piecing together the last moments of Geri’s life through security camera footage and interviewing Geri’s family, colleagues, and former boyfriends, Sloane uncovers elaborate, big-money racketeering and an array of cold-blooded villains driven by a lust for money. Her dangerous pursuit of the truth culminates in an electrifying finale with surprises galore. This gritty crime tale, which snakes through Vancouver’s squalid backstreets, plunges the fearless, at times reckless heroine into a surfeit of horrific encounters with addicts and abusers, rapists, and killers. This isn’t for the faint-hearted. (Apr.)