Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane) by Tony Healey
Beyond the shores of Hope’s Peak, North Carolina, evil waits as his next victim approaches. He’ll make her a princess like the others…
Detective Jane Harper can’t shake the image of the young woman discovered in a field—eyes closed, a crown of woven vines on her head. She expects macabre murders like this in her native San Francisco, not here. Jane and her partner, Stu, vow to catch the killer, but in this town, that’s easier said than done. The police department is in the grips of a wide-reaching scandal that could topple the entire force, and Jane and Stu face a series of dead ends. Until they meet Ida Lane.
Ida knows too well the evil that lurks in the cornfields. Tortured by her mother’s murder years before, Ida is paralyzed by the fear that she could be next. As the killer grows bolder, Jane must persuade Ida to use her remarkable gifts to help in the investigation. It’s a decision that brings them closer to the killer…maybe too close.
It was a decent book but there were enough flaws to feel disappointed after the synopsis sounded so intriguing. Basically a serial killer has been active in this small North Carolina town but only those in power know about it because they forced the police to alter details of each killing and take an oath of silence under threat of ruining their lives so no one, including the deceased’s family members, know this happening. At one point a character implies someone in this power circle knows who the murderer is and they’re being protected at the cost of innocent lives lost. However, even though the murderer is revealed in the middle of the book and a small flashback scene at the end has someone show up to tell him that he’s being protected, it’s never made explicit who the murderer was connected to, how it was known he was the one doing the killing spree, why he was being protected, etc. When the police FINALLY figure out who is doing it there’s no big recognition on their part or anyone else’s that this murderer is connected to anyone important enough to force the crimes to remain unsolved for this long. A HUGE plot hole is just left dangling. Even though the ‘good’ detectives who found out about this swear they’re going to bust everyone into the limelight who was involved in this cover up that never happens either. It was very irritating to get to the end and not find out why this was all let to happen unless the racist implications throughout the book are meant to be some kind of detail that this town is run by white supremacists who had no problem letting innocent black girls die. Therefore it wasn’t that the murderer was actually connected to anyone specific but more along the lines that he was doing something these people wanted done but didn’t have the ability to do it themselves. There were also holes in how the detectives’ lives were handled. Harper was said to have left a bad marriage then a psychic had a vision of her leaving an envelope and her wedding ring before walking out of her house but no details were given to put any of her past into context. Her partner Stu was also said to have left a bad marriage, it seemed to be implied his wife left him because he couldn’t get her pregnant then suddenly out of nowhere her character is showing up angry claiming their marriage blew up because he was having an affair with his partner though they weren’t. Of course there had to be a psychic and it was only through the psychic we could get more details of the murders because the detectives were too busy having a relationship or not having a relationship to find out anything themselves. One of the worst aspects of this ‘detective’ work was that the real files the detectives used to find the serial were apparently being kept in the basement of the police station in a locked file cabinet. Yes, the very proof that would’ve brought down an until number of politicians, businessmen, and even police captains who were involved in a multi-decade cover up of a serial had been kept for anyone to find. There were SO MANY details not given except when it came to the rape and murder scenes, these the author went into overdrive on to ensure the reader could put themselves in the moment which makes me wonder about the author’s state of mind that he could get so explicit here but so vague through the rest of his book.
*synopsis and pic from amazon.com