Ill Conceived

Journalist Aimee Brent, the heroine of Hayden’s engaging series kickoff, gets an opportunity to demonstrate her investigative skills for the South Shore Carrier, a paper in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., when 15-year-old Lauri Evans goes missing. Lauri’s disappearance was reported to the police by the girl’s elderly neighbor, Louise Dietz, known as Grandma Louise “because she enjoyed taking care of others and hovered over people, much like grandparents do.” That Grandma Louise heard a scream the night Lauri vanished convinced her that the girl was abducted. She shares a cryptic detail with Aimee that she withheld from the police—that she saw a “young shadow” running down the hallway she and Lauri live on. Aimee—who she remains traumatized by nightmares of her mother’s unsolved murder, which she witnessed as a seven-year-old—pursues the case. The trail to the truth about Lauri takes some surprising twists, and Hayden heightens suspense with scenes from the perspective of an unidentified murderer. (BookLife)