South of Nowhere

At the start of Koenig’s engrossing sequel to 2014’s Nine Days, a body that’s been dead for several months turns up in the wrecked farmhouse that Julia Kalas has been renovating in Azula, Tex., the town where the U.S. Federal Witness Security Program relocated her after her criminal husband’s murder three years earlier. This is just one problem for poor Julia, who’s troubled by post-traumatic stress disorder. Meanwhile, her sometime boyfriend may be stuck in Cuba. Then there’s her friendship with the therapist who once tried to murder her. When Julia is offered a bunch of money to help find a missing woman, she sees it as her chance to disappear into Mexico. Then the missing woman is linked to a medical clinic specializing in bariatric surgery. Or maybe she’s dead and someone else is using her identity. The bodies keep piling up in this complicated tale, which offers enough mayhem, double-crossing, and general weirdness on the Tex-Mex border to last a lifetime. Agent: Jessica Alvarez, BookEnds. (Feb.)