Down the Broken Road: A Rachel Carver Novel

Backlund’s disappointing sequel to 2017’s Among the Dead finds former North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation special agent Rachel Carver, who quit the SBI after she shot and killed a murder suspect, Lauren Bailey, in self-defense, searching for work as a private investigator. A call from a Siler City detective interrupts Carver’s job search: her friend Bryce Parker, a Raleigh Herald reporter, is in the hospital recovering from a near-fatal heroin overdose. Someone kidnapped Parker, she learns, and injected him with the drug. Related events involving drugs, a recovery center, a scandalous affair, and a growing body count follow, all weighed down by increasingly flat prose. Meanwhile, Carver discovers a link between the deaths of Bailey and her former boyfriend, platoon leader Sgt. Tyler Larson, with a military cover-up in Afghanistan. Backlund supplies a surfeit of forgettable supporting characters, but readers who admire strong female leads will want to see more of the intriguing Carver. Agent: Rachel Ekstrom Courage, Folio Literary Management. (Oct.)