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The Body Below

Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

From USA Today bestselling author Daniel Hecht, The Body Below takes the reader on an uneasy quest for the nature of truth and who gets to tell it. Perfect for fans of In the Woods by Tana French and The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley.

Conn Whitman's long-distance swims keep him centered and sane—until a terrifying underwater encounter in a woodland lake plunges him into the middle of a murder investigation.

Once a superstar investigative reporter, disgraced by misconduct, Conn returned to his Vermont hometown to put his life back together. Now, after ten years on the job, he knows his community like nobody else. When he kicks a submerged object while swimming—something with the density and resilience of human flesh—he immediately wonders if it's connected to an unsolved murder in a nearby town.

Detective Marlene Selanski is the lead on the State Police investigation and soon locks horns with Conn. It's clear she considers him a suspect and believes his "vigilante research" is interfering with her investigation. Defying Selanski, Conn and his fiancée Celine Gabrielli combine their talents—her PhD in psychology, his skills at journalistic research and wealth of knowledge about Vermont's old villages—to seek answers on their own.

As layers of deception peel away, Conn and Celine realize too late the dangers of amateur sleuthing: Murder disrupts lives in unexpected ways, sending out ripples and bringing long-hidden secrets to the surface.

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    • Kirkus

      July 15, 2023
      A brief, unnerving encounter in a beloved swimming spot sends a disgraced but still employed reporter on a quest to find his sister's killer. Years after his attempt to take down a corrupt senator turned on him and got him fired from the Washington Post, Connor Whitman is working for the Richfield Herald, the paper in his Vermont hometown, which was willing to overlook his checkered past. During one of his daily long-distance swims in the Richfield Reservoir, he bumps into a squishy, partially submerged object he quickly loses sight of. When his memory is jogged later, he realizes that it might have been the bagged body of Gertrude "Trudy" Carlson, a single mom who's gone missing. What he can't have imagined is that Trudy was born Laurel Whitman, the sister from whom he's long been estranged. Even that's not the only tie the missing woman has to his past, for her first husband was Mason King, Conn's childhood friend and present-day sheriff's deputy. Alternating perspectives between Conn and his girlfriend, Celine Gabrielli, the guidance counselor at the school Trudy's two children attend, Hecht follows Conn's quest to ascertain the fate of the sister he'd never really known. Two subplots that erupt along the way--one concerning David Laughlin, a serial abuser who hits on every female employee in a local shop, the other involving the affairs of Anthony Shapiro, the latest of Trudy's many ex-boyfriends--are so explosive that they threaten to take the limelight off Trudy, except of course for Conn and Celine. A soulful, improbable, and ultimately cathartic plunge into the depths.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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