Saturday, April 6, 2019

ARC Review: Come and Get Me by August Norman

Come and Get Me
Author: August Norman
Series: A Caitlin Bergman Novel
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (April 9, 2019)

Description: An intrepid journalist confronts a small town’s dark secrets in Come and Get Me, a breakneck thriller for fans of Tess Gerritsen and Julia Keller.

At Indiana University, someone’s been studying the female student body: their dating customs, nocturnal activities—and how long they can survive in captivity.

When award-winning journalist Caitlin Bergman is invited back to campus to receive an honorary degree, she finds an opportunity for a well-earned victory lap—and a chance to face the trauma that almost destroyed her as an undergrad. But her lap becomes an all-out race when a student begs her to probe an unsolved campus disappearance: Angela Chapman went out one Friday night and never came back.

To find the missing woman, Caitlin must join forces with a local police detective and the department that botched her own case so long ago. But while Caitlin follows the clues behind Angela’s disappearance, someone else is following her…

Unearthing secrets hidden beneath an idyllic Midwestern college town, Caitlin must expose what really happened to Angela—before she herself becomes the newest addition to a twisted collection.

My Thoughts: Caitlin Bergman is back in Bloomington to accept an honorary degree from Indiana University. She fled just four credits short of graduation without telling anyone why. Now her best friend is the head of the Media Department and has convinced her to come.

During a Q & A after her degree ceremony, she is asked if she has come to investigate the disappearance of Angela Chapman who was a sophomore when she was last seen. Her best friend Lakshmi Anjale is a student journalist who has been keeping Angela's disappearance in the public's awareness. Caitlin also confesses that she left twenty years earlier because she had been beaten and raped. The police convinced her not to file charges and threatened to use her own sexual history to smear her reputation.

She has come back, partially, to face that situation and try to finally lay it to rest. But looking into Angela's disappearance gives her an excuse to stay more than the weekend she had planned. The movie deal money from her current best seller has given her the freedom to decide what she wants to do next. She thinks that Angela's story might turn into her next book.

As she delves into the events of the two years earlier, she meets those who were involved including Jerry Greenwood from the Bloomington PD who was involved in the earlier investigation. She also mentors Lakshmi in investigative journalism as they retrace the events of Angela's disappearance.

Meanwhile and intertwined in the story, we get some scenes from the character who took Angela as he focuses on a new victim and fixates on Caitlin.

This was an engaging page turner with a twisty, fast-paced plot. Caitlin in an intriguing character who excels in her work as an investigative journalist despite the trauma that still fills her life. I liked her and would like to read more stories about her.

Favorite Quote:
She'd been able to quit smoking, abstain from sex, even ditch booze when necessary, but when it came to a story no one else could tell, Caitlin fiended like any other junkie.
I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

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