Rumor of Evil

Braver (Choose Me) skillfully alternates timelines in this unpredictable whodunit set in Cambridge, Mass. When 36-year-old Sylvie Thornton’s landscaper finds her hanging from a tree in her backyard on the third anniversary of her son Devon’s death, detectives Kirk Lucian and Mandy Wing are called to the scene. Shortly after Devon’s death from cancer, Sylvia divorced her husband, and her surviving son went to live with his father. Kirk, who lost his own child in an unsolved hit-and-run, at first suspects that Sylvie took her own life, but an autopsy reveals foul play. The plot thickens when Kirk and Mandy learn that Sylvie attempted to blackmail her ex-husband a year earlier. Flashbacks set 19 years before the main action, concerning the death of a Slovakian exchange student who was classmates with Sylvie, tease potential connections to Sylvie’s murder. When Kirk and Mandy learn of that long-ago death, they unravel some dark truths about contemporary Cambridge. Braver interweaves a convincing police procedural and a character-driven high school drama, bringing both threads to a surprising and satisfying resolution. Here’s hoping Kirk and Mandy are on the case again soon. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Aevitas Creative Management. (Oct.)