Sergeant Camille Waresch did everything she could to forget Iraq. She went home to Eastern Washington and got a quiet job. She connected with her daughter, Sophie, whom she had left as a baby. She got sober. But the ghosts of her past were never far behind.
While conducting a routine property tax inspection on an isolated ranch, Camille discovers a teenager's tortured corpse hanging in a dilapidated outbuilding. In a flash, her combat-related PTSD resurges-and in her dreams, the hanging boy merges with a young soldier whose eerily similar death still haunts her. The case hits home when Sophie reveals that the victim was her ex-boyfriend-and as Camille investigates, she uncovers a tangled trail that leads to his jealous younger brother and her own daughter, wild, defiant, and ensnared.
The closer Camille gets to the truth, the closer she is driven to the edge. Her home is broken into. Her truck is blown up. Evidence and witnesses she remembers clearly are erased. And when Sophie disappears, Camille's hunt for justice becomes a hunt for her child. At a remote compound where the terrifying truth is finally revealed, Camille has one last chance to save her daughter-and redeem her own shattered soul.
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Dust; long, fat streamers of it rose from the wheels of my truck as I drove up into the hills of Jeremy Leamon's ranch. 1
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(@crookedlanebks, 11 August 2020, 264 pages, ebook, copy from the publisher via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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I'd never heard of the author before but this sounded like a good thriller. I really enjoyed this book. It's the kind of thriller I enjoy the most; fast paced, full of twists and turns, compelling storyline and well-written characters. Camille is a great character; she reminds me a lot of Dex in the TV show Stumptown. She's a complex person, suffering from PTSD, trying to hide from the horrors she saw in Iraq by getting a 'normal job' but struggling to keep it together, traumatised by her own experiences and choices. Her relationship or lack of it with her daughter Sophie is heart-breaking. Sophie is angry and brittle, understandably so. Camille abandoned her and thinks she can just turn up when she's on the cusp of becoming an adult and act as if everything's okay. She is angry and damaged and lashing out. Camille doesn't help. She doesn't ask her daughter what's wrong or try and talk to her, she just gets angry and rages and threatens. They're both broken and can't help each other. Camille is warned off sticking her nose in but refuses to listen and endangers everyone around her. This is a compelling read.