ARC Review: Last Girl Gone by J. G. Hetherton

Last Girl Gone
Author: J. G. Hetherton
Series: A Laura Chambers Mystery (Book 1)
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (June 12, 2018)

Description: Sometimes, the journey home is the most harrowing. And it’s every parent’s worst nightmare.

Investigative journalist Laura Chambers is back in her tiny hometown of Hillsborough, North Carolina, the one place she swore never to return. Fired from the Boston Globe, her career in shambles, she reluctantly takes a job with the local paper. The work is simple, unimportant, and worst of all, boring―at least until a missing girl turns up dead, the body impeccably clean, dressed to be the picture of innocence.

Years earlier, ten-year-old Patty Finch left home and never made it back. But for the people of Hillsborough, Patty was just the beginning. Child after child disappeared, a reign of terror the town desperately wants to forget. Now that terror has returned to seize another girl. And another. And another.

This is the story Laura’s been waiting for―her one last chance to get back onto the front page. She dives deeper into a case that runs colder by the second, only to discover the truth may be far closer to home than she could have ever imagined. Powerful, intricate, and tense, Last Girl Gone will have you looking over your shoulder long after the last page.

My Thoughts: Laura Chambers is back home in Hillsborough, North Carolina, after being fired as an investigative journalist in Boston. She ran afoul of the powerful and her paper let her go rather than being sued. Now she is working for the local paper and dealing with another reporter who is resentful of her previous success and abusive because of it. She is also living back in her childhood home with her emotionally abusive mother and going to therapy to deal with her problems.

When a young girl's body is found in a field, Laura's first thought is that reporting this could be her chance to get her career back on track and out of Hillsborough. Another young girl is missing and the hunt is on to find her. Laura is sleeping with a police deputy and using him for inside information. Through him she learns the name of the FBI agent who is also working the case and goes to him to share a tip.

The FBI agent points her to a previous series of killings of young girls that happened in 1988 which has a number of similarities to the current case. Laura's investigation into the old case leads to a previous police chief who is still haunted by that case and who offers Laura insights. When a clue leads to the possible whereabouts of the second missing girl Laura can't the the police to take her seriously and her FBI contact is unavailable. So she goes to the man she was sleeping with who is going to be fired because the police believe he is the one who shared information with Laura. He is killed while investigating and so is the supposed killer. Laura is hurt. The police and the FBI are eager to mark the case closed and Laura is the pariah who got a police officer killed. Then another girl disappears.

This was a fast-paced story with a damaged main character. She has lost her faith in humanity and her own ideals. She is, however, determined to find out what happened to the two girls who are still missing even it it costs her life. There were a number of twists and turns to the story and a surprise that I didn't see coming that made this a compelling story.

Favorite Quote:

"So he lied to you."

"No, he doesn't see it like that. Which makes it worse. There are no villains in the world, just millions of people with a very screwed-up idea of what constitutes the right thing."

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.