cover image In the Darkest Hour: A Gin Sullivan Mystery

In the Darkest Hour: A Gin Sullivan Mystery

Anna Carlisle. Crooked Lane, $26.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-68331-731-9

At the start of Carlisle’s unconvincing third mystery featuring former medical examiner Gin Sullivan (after 2017’s All the Secret Places), Gin is volunteering at a Trumbull, Pa., middle school when her live-in lover, contractor Jake Crosby, barges into the classroom with the news that his troubled mother, Marnie Bertram, whom he hasn’t seen since infancy, has been found dead in a motel room. The autopsy suggests that Marnie died of a drug overdose, and Jake with surprising ease soon nabs the drug dealer who sold his mother the heroin that killed her, Jonah Krischer. Jonah offers to reveal the whereabouts of another body in exchange for leniency. Gin and Jake separate under the strain of the subsequent investigation, and Gin finds herself attracted to the hunky Trumbull police chief. Carlisle stitches cozy elements—small-town quaintness, descriptions of food, the heroine’s loving but invasive family—into an often grim police procedural. For many readers, this will be an awkward mix. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary Agency. (Sept.)