A fifteen-year-old girl named Jodie Sheehan goes missing and is found dead and sexually assaulted near a footpath in the woods. Cyrus Haven is a forensic psychologist assigned to the case. The reader learns early in the novel that Cyrus has experienced severe trauma, losing his entire family at the hands of his older brother when Cyrus was only thirteen.
During his work on the Sheehan case Cyrus is also asked to observe at a juvenile detention center. There is a girl there who has been assigned a name, Evie Cormac, because no one knows her real identity or where she came from. Only that she was found seven years prior when she could have been around ten- or eleven-years old hiding in a secret room in a house where a man was tortured to death.
Cyrus arranges to foster care for Evie himself while simultaneously trying to solve the case of Jodie Sheehan. Evie takes it upon herself to get involved with the case as she has an unusual gift: she is a truth seer and can always tell if someone is lying. A neighbor man is arrested and charged with murdering Jodie, but an autopsy reveals that she was pregnant at the time of her death and DNA shows that the father of the unborn baby is a family member. Deep-held secrets of the Sheehan family and their relatives are subsequently revealed during a breathlessly frightening climax where we learn of her true killer.
The parallel story of Evie and Cyrus almost take center stage to the murder of Jodie in this book. Glimpses into the horror of what happened to Cyrus's family when he was thirteen tell of the state of his psyche and what might have led him to become a psychologist. In addition, the experiences that Evie had before her rescue are so abhorrent that I was hooked to find out more and what lead her to be hiding in that house. Some details are given, but not all.
Robotham lets the reader know just enough to care and be invested in the two protagonists and want to know more! Supporting characters are introduced and add to the complex and compelling cast of characters of this Edgar Best Novel Award Finalist. There are two other Cyrus Haven Books that I will be reaching for soon.
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