Revolver Road

Daugherty’s winning third Harper McClain mystery (after 2019’s A Beautiful Corpse) finds intrepid Savannah, Ga., reporter Harper on Tybee Island, where she has been lying low since receiving a threatening phone call from “a man who knew far too much about her mother’s murder” 16 years earlier. On the resort island, she eventually gets drawn into the disappearance of eminent musician Xavier Rayne, who was staying there. Xavier’s bandmates describe him as moody and contemplative, taking off for hours or days at a time. But this time is different: the band was supposed to go on tour to support a new album. Writing about Xavier keeps Harper’s mind off her impending doom and provides front-page stories for her Savannah newspaper. Then everything implodes, and Harper is on the run, tracking a killer while another killer tracks her. With help from her newspaper colleagues and ex-beau Luke Walker, she’s determined to solve Xavier’s disappearance and put her own dark past behind her. In lesser hands this complex tale of love and revenge might falter, but Daugherty never sounds a false note. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary (U.K.). (Mar.)