River Bodies
Karen Katchur
Thomas & Mercer
Veterinarian Becca Kingsley grew up in Portland, a small Pennsylvanian town alongside the Delaware River. Her father Clint was chief of police, respected by the community but an object of fear and loathing to Becca for his stern discipline and womanizing. Estranged from Clint for years, Becca gets a call from his partner Jackie to tell her the old man is dying. Becca returns to Portland full of conflicting emotions. She’s glad to leave her partner Matt, a successful New York patent lawyer, as he’s screwing around—yet denies it to her face.
. . . a complex story of small town loyalties and relationships, and the nature of family ties.
Becca’s homecoming coincides with the discovery of an eviscerated corpse in the river. The killing shows all the hallmarks of a similar, unsolved, murder twenty years before, a case Clint Kingsley was involved in as chief of police. Becca’s old friend and unrequited love Parker Reed is the state police detective assigned to the new case. When they meet, Becca’s feelings for Parker resurface, along with a host of suppressed childhood memories and questions about the previous killing. Another old acquaintance, the local biker gang’s enforcer John Jackson, is taking a keen interest in Becca. Is it benign? With a dying father, a cheating lover, and a renewed passion for Parker, Becca has to negotiate a life made as turbulent and dangerous as the Delaware River before she finds answers to her questions.
River Bodies is a complex story of small town loyalties and relationships, and the nature of family ties. A lurking sense of danger flows like the Delaware throughout, drawing the reader along in its current to the shocking end.
