Every Hidden Fear

A peaceful college town goes berserk in Rodriguez’s solid third Skeet Bannion mystery (after 2012’s Every Broken Trust). When real estate developer Ash Mowbray returns to his hometown of Brewster, Mo., he proposes to build a new mall that would ruin the old-fashioned downtown, but his real purpose is to humiliate and destroy those who looked down on him as a youth. Suspects abound after someone fatally clobbers Mowbray with a golf club. Skeet Bannion, the strong-minded but emotionally vulnerable chief of the Choteau University police, must investigate on her own after a sociopathic tycoon pressures the local police to settle the case quickly by framing a high school athlete. Rodriguez efficiently stage-manages a large cast of townsfolk, and neatly uses what Skeet discovers about other people to comment on her personal confusion about her Cherokee heritage and her fear of romance. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary Agency. (May)