Dark of Night

Coble returns to Michigan’s upper peninsula in the largely satisfying second entry in her Annie Pederson series (after Edge of Dusk). Annie, a park ranger, assists Sheriff Mason Kaleva in the search for Michelle Fraser, whose car recently turned up abandoned in the wilderness with a bloody sheet in the trunk. Meanwhile, Annie deals with upheavals in her personal life. A paternity test reveals that Annie’s eight-year-old daughter, Kylie, was fathered by Jon, her onetime fiancé and current romantic interest, and he pushes Annie to tell Kylie, who thinks her father was Annie’s dead husband. Additionally, Taylor, an enigmatic woman who worked under an adopted identity at the resort Annie owns, claims to be Annie’s younger sister, who was abducted when Annie was nine. Taylor, who blames Annie for not saving her, feels she can be a better mother to Kylie and tricks the girl into running away with her. After Kylie realizes that Taylor has no intention of ever taking her home again, she escapes into the woods, while Annie and Jon search for her, which leads to an unexpected development in the Fraser case. There’s not much spark between Annie and Jon, but Taylor’s malice toward Annie and Annie’s struggle to empathize with Taylor after she kidnapped Kylie powerfully speak to Coble’s message on the difficulty and necessity of practicing Christian forgiveness. Series fans will find this up to snuff. (Jan.)