Whose Hand? A Skeeter Hughes Mystery

In Borger's diverting second mystery featuring Minneapolis Citizen reporter Marguerite "Skeeter" Hughes (after 2009's Where's Billie?), editor Thom Savage successfully pitches for a missing persons beat, and Skeeter gets the assignment. When 70-year-old BJ Jones, an ice fisherman, tells Skeeter that he caught, then lost, a human hand in Lake Harriet the previous fall, Skeeter winnows the possible victims to three people: Amber Thomas, a young black woman who lived with her grandmother; Yuri Yudeshenka, an elderly furrier who emigrated from the former U.S.S.R.; and Pace Palmer, a research coordinator for a medical device company. While Skeeter chases leads that connect to exotic animal trafficking and whistleblowing, husband Michael Marks, a reporter for the rival St. Paul Post, walks out on her and their two daughters. Skeeter's dogged reporting sparks more than one violent response in a regional mystery with appeal to readers beyond the Twin Cities. (Aug.)