Something Bad Wrong

Mommy blogger Jess Keeler, the heroine of this ambitious if flawed tale of pathological anger, guilt, and obsession from Pruitt (What We Reckon), is smitten with the idea of creating a true-crime podcast solving the Christmas Eve 1972 murders of lovers Linda Harris and Steven Hicks, an unsolved crime on Virginia’s border with North Carolina. With the help of disgraced newscaster Dan Decker, Jess sets out to probe a crime no one now will discuss. Meanwhile, Jess’s grandfather James Ballard, the North Carolina deputy charged with investigating the Harris and Hicks killings under good ol’ boy Sheriff Red Carter five decades earlier, is succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease. Shifting between time frames and using several characters’ perspectives from both sides of the state line, Pruitt attempts to analyze too many psychological motives, in the process sacrificing convincing character development to superficially conceived grisly actions. The powerful descriptions of Ballard’s descent into furious madness, however, evoke both pity and terror. Pruitt has done better. Agent: Josh Getzler, HG Literary. (Mar.)