cover image The Burning Island

The Burning Island

Hester Young. Putnam, $26 (416p) ISBN 978-0-399-17402-5

Thriller Award finalist Young’s haunted third thriller featuring Charlotte “Charlie” Cates (after 2017’s The Shimmering Road) finds the freelance journalist reeling from the media frenzy following her partner’s unwelcome disclosure that clues from dreams are what helped her rescue a missing child—the most recent of several. Charlie can’t wait to ditch the news vans outside their home in Tucson, Ariz., for a working Hawaiian getaway. But once in the Big Island’s remote Kalo Valley, she discovers that she’s only swapped one firestorm for another when she learns that the subject her sly, publicity conscious editor has suggested she profile, Dr. Victor Nakagawa, is not only a prominent volcanologist and triathlete but also the father of 16-year-old Lise, who disappeared six weeks earlier. And though most members of the family seem convinced the popular but rebellious teen simply ran away, Charlie’s alarming dreams scream otherwise. What she doesn’t see coming—until it may be too late—is the danger to herself. Brace for a hair-raising cliff dive into waters dark and deep. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth. (Jan.)