by Chuck Hogan
First published 2025
Marissa, Jeannie, Samira, and Nicole meet at a school bowling fundraiser in 2020. All four women left careers to raise children, and all four love true crime podcasts. Their conversation turns to an unsolved double homicide from a decade earlier. A married couple in their sixties disappeared from home, their family business closed, and creditors sued them for a million dollars. Everyone assumed they fled with the money until police found their bodies in a car at the bottom of a ravine. The case went cold. The four women decide to investigate. Marissa brings forensic accounting skills, Jeannie has journalism experience, Samira provides drive and ambition, and Nicole excels at research. The pandemic gives them access to witnesses and experts stuck at home. They uncover connections police missed and make genuine breakthroughs. An Assistant District Attorney reopens the case and asks them to join the official investigation. Their amateur sleuthing leads to discoveries none of them expected and puts them in real danger.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller, amateur-sleuth
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unlikely-heroes
Period: 2020
336 pages · Hardcover · Random House