First published 1998
Frank Clemons works homicide in Atlanta when the body of Angelique Devereaux turns up in a slum neighborhood. The beautiful young woman lived in a mansion with her older sister Karen, an artist. Both sisters were orphans who barely spoke to each other despite sharing the same house. Clemons discovers that Angelique kept to herself at school too, forming no close friendships with her classmates. The detective knows only that she was lovely and pregnant when she died. This drives him into an obsessive search for any trace of information about Angelique and the father of her unborn child. Clemons follows the victim's movements through her final days, piecing together fragments of her secretive life. His investigation leads him toward a shocking revelation that will devastate both detective and reader. Cook crafts flawless characters, particularly Clemons himself, a dedicated officer whose humanity shines through his relentless pursuit of justice for a young woman no one seemed to know.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: investigative-journalism, obsession, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Atlanta
Period: 20th-century
287 pages · Hardcover · G. P. Putnam's Sons
Content warnings: death, murder