Hidden Nature

Bestseller Roberts returns (after Mind Games) with a solid standalone about a wounded cop tracking a series of mysterious disappearances. Sloan Cooper, a corporal in Maryland’s Natural Resources Police, is shot while stopping a robbery at a gas station. Faced with a long recovery process, she returns to her family home in the small mountain town of Heron’s Rest. There, she meets Nash Littlefield, a former New York City lawyer who moved to Heron’s Rest to start a contracting business with his younger brother. News that a woman in the area has disappeared, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, piques Sloan’s interest. When a middle-aged man vanishes under similar circumstances, Sloan looks for connections between the cases, and finds several other disappearances in two nearby states. With Nash’s help, Sloan investigates, and comes to believe that a serial killer is stalking the region. Roberts devotes more time to Nash’s renovation projects—and his budding romance with Sloan—than the core mystery, but provides plenty of lovable side characters and cozy escapism. For Roberts’s fans, this delivers the goods. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House. (May)