Follow Me Down

At the start of Smith’s compelling first novel, John Pruden, the police chief of Wayoata, N.Dak., phones Mia Hass, a Chicago-based pharmacist with a dependence on pills, to ask whether she’s heard recently from her twin brother, Lucas. Pruden, who says he’s missing, urges Mia to return to Wayoata, her hometown, where she learns that Lucas, a high school teacher, has become the prime suspect in the murder of one of his students. The town residents are all against him, and the inept local police are all too willing to treat the faintest circumstantial evidence as if it were solid proof in what they consider an open-and-shut case. Only Mia is sure of her brother’s innocence. To discover what really happened, she must descend into the narrow-minded hypocrisy of the small town she hoped to leave behind her and come to grips with her problematic relationship with her alcoholic, brain-damaged mother. When we think things cannot get worse, they do. Against all odds, Mia fiercely pursues the truth in this unsettling crime thriller. Agent: Beth Phelan, Bent Agency. (Mar.)