Leave No Trace: A National Parks Thriller

This mixed-bag series launch from Landau, a pseudonym for Jon Land (the Murder, She Wrote series) and Jeff Ayers (Voyages of Imagination), gets off to a gripping start, but struggles to sustain its momentum. After an explosion topples the Statue of Liberty, killing hundreds and injuring thousands more, special agent Michael Walker of the National Parks Service and FBI explosives expert Gina Delgado are among the first on the scene. The well-organized attack seemed to leave no leads for the investigators to pursue—until Walker locates a young survivor who captured video of the likely perpetrators aboard what appears to be a Park Police boat in the New York Harbor. Interspersed with Walker and Delgado’s investigation are chapters from the perspective of Lantry, a Lakota Sioux man who’s also tracking the terrorists. As the parallel investigations unfold, it becomes clear that the Statue of Liberty attack was only the beginning of a plan to take down American democracy. The novel’s first act builds up plenty of goodwill, but Land and Ayers mostly squander it by weighing down the narrative with excessive exposition and revealing their villains’ identities too early. Here’s hoping the follow-up irons out the kinks. (Feb.)