What She Found

Bestseller Dugoni’s first-rate ninth police procedural featuring Tracy Crosswhite (after 2021’s In Her Tracks) hands the Seattle homicide detective a cold case with threatening professional and personal implications. Twenty-five years earlier, newspaper reporter Lisa Childress vanished after going to meet an anonymous informant in a deserted parking lot. Now, Tracy is approached by Lisa’s daughter with a plea to look into the files again. Tracy, moved by her devotion to her own family, accepts the daunting task of finding the missing woman. When Tracy examines the cases Lisa was investigating, she becomes increasingly uneasy at how the criminal activities of a rogue unit of the police could connect with Tracy’s own dearest friends and most trusted mentors in the department. Even when the mystery of Lisa’s disappearance is miraculously resolved, it’s clear that no one is going to come out of this investigation untested or unscathed. Dugoni convincingly details Tracy’s methodical but creative approach to this tangle of guilt and denial, as well as showing her empathy for the people involved. Readers will eagerly await Tracy’s next outing. Agents: Rebecca Scherer and Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Aug.)