Cold Woods: A Northampton County Novel

Katchur’s weak sequel to 2018’s River Bodies limps through two entangled plots, one contemporary and the other set in the mid-1980s. After three decades of putting up with a sadistic husband in Las Vegas, Nev., Trisha Haines escapes to her childhood home in a decaying eastern Pennsylvania town. Her return coincides with the investigation of Parker Reed, a local homicide detective, of a set of human bones found in the woods near the Appalachian Trail. Flashbacks reveal the abusive relationship between the victim and Trisha, her mother, and two of her friends from adolescence. Each of the principal characters had to live with a single overworked and traumatized parent. Workmanlike prose and a trite subplot involving the troubled Parker undercut this sad tale of domestic abuse and violence. Still, Katchur deserves credit for showing how parental sins are inexorably visited on the next generation: everyone knew but no one did anything. [em]Agent: Carly Watters, P.S. Literary. (Aug.) [/em]