Devils at the Door: A Shana Merchant Novel

Wegert’s chilling fifth mystery featuring New York State Police investigator Merchant (after 2022’s The Kind to Kill) successfully builds on her protagonist’s loaded backstory. In previous entries, Merchant discovered that her cousin, Abraham Skilton, killed more than a dozen women while living under the alias Blake Bram. Despite Bram’s violent death, Merchant remains haunted by nightmares about the murders. Now, Merchant’s troubled teenage niece, Henrietta, has been skipping school and damaging her parents’ property in response to being bullied by classmates about her familial connection to Bram. Merchant’s brother pleads with her to take in Hen for a semester, and she agrees—but the move to a new town doesn’t end the teen’s torments. After students at Hen’s new high school start a Bram fan club, she becomes the prime suspect in the drowning death of a boy discovered with a suspicious head wound—and Merchant is assigned to investigate. Wegert expertly renders Merchant’s quandary, ratcheting up the personal and professional stakes, and keeps readers off-balance as the investigation unfolds. Fans of David Mark’s DS Aector McAvoy series should check this out. Agent: Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary. (Dec.)