June 13, 2022
Flowers, the host of the true crime podcast Crime Junkie, debuts with a twisty psychological thriller coauthored with Kiester (The Truth About Ben and June). Twenty-five years after the unsolved murder of Margot Davies’s childhood best friend, January Jacobs (forever frozen in public memory—shades of JonBenét Ramsey—as that tiny dancer looking disturbingly older than six in her skimpy competition costume), Margot remains haunted by the case, as well as the way pious finger-pointing in her hometown of Wakarusa, Ind., helped shatter her surviving family. So when duty drags Margot, now a crime reporter for an Indianapolis newspaper, back to Wakarusa to care for the ailing uncle who raised her, she hopes this might be her chance to crack the case—especially once, less than a day after her arrival, a five-year-old vanishes in a neighboring town. The reporter swiftly discovers that the townsfolk she once thought she knew may have been concealing far more complex and problematic passions than apparent back then to a child such as herself. This intricate, intriguing puzzler should surprise even those readers certain they know where the plot’s heading. Flowers is off to a promising start. Agent: Meredith Miller, UTA.