You Will Pay

At the start of this overly long thriller from bestseller Jackson (After She’s Gone), four people—two female counselors, a part-time worker, and an escaped convict who ventured into the area—disappear from Camp Horseshoe, a religious camp in Averill, Ore., while one male counselor, Tyler Quade, is found alive with a knife lodged in his back. Twenty years later, a jawbone surfaces on the camp’s beach. It belongs to one of the victims, counselor Elle Brady, and the seven surviving female counselors, Lucas Dalton (the son of Horseshoe’s owner and a detective with the local police), and Tyler are called in to testify about their recollections of the events. Lucas, who broke up with Elle on the night she disappeared, has felt guilty ever since. A camper from that time, now a reporter, dredges up the story and gets in contact with the involved parties. The tension rises when all of the women get a text picturing Elle in a coffin accompanied by the message “you will pay.” Too many twists and turns add nothing to the narrative, which eventually builds to a surprising, if contrived, ending. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House. (June)