Say You’re Sorry

In Ned Kelly Award–winner Robotham’s taut seventh psychological thriller featuring psychologist Joe O’Loughlin and retired cop Vincent Ruiz (after 2011’s The Wreckage), the Oxford police approach Joe for help in profiling a suspect, Augie Shaw. Accused of murdering Patricia and William Heyman in the couple’s farmhouse during a blizzard, Shaw strikes Joe as an unlikely killer since he suffers from delusions and possibly schizophrenia. Interwoven with Joe’s investigation are journal entries by 18-year-old Piper Hadley, who was kidnapped—along with her best friend, Tash McBain—three years earlier and is still being held. Known as “the Bingham Girls,” Piper and Tash dominated the news but when no clues turned up, it was assumed they ran away. When links arise between the Heyman murders and the unsolved kidnapping, Joe and Vincent work to reopen the girls’ case and find them before it’s too late. Robotham doesn’t shy away from the unsettling, but he never seeks merely to titillate. Agent, Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Oct.)