DON'T MAKE A SOUND

3 stars out of 5

After reading and enjoying other books by

this author, I jumped at the chance to get it as an Amazon Prime Reads selection. Now I've finished it, and I have to say it just didn't push the right buttons for me. It's heavy-handed in the focus on sexual abuse (often graphically described), psychologically damaged victims and some of the sickest characters I've ever had the displeasure to meet. It's not that it isn't well-written, I hasten to add - it was for me just too much of a bad thing.

There are two plots going on here, both tinged (make that doused) with violence and revenge. A group calling themselves The Crew meet on the Dark Web, plotting to make sexual predators "pay" for what they've done. No killing or maiming allowed, they claim; they simply want to impress upon them that payback is a you-know-what. The other story focuses on Sawyer Brooks, a 29-year-old journalist who longs to be on the crime scene beat. She and her two sisters, Aria and Harper, are themselves victims of extensive and horrific sexual abuse - and dealing with it in very different ways (Harper is a neat freak, Sawyer avoids emotional or physical attachments and Aria simply refuses to go there). Not only are all three seriously psychologically damaged by abuse, but in large part because of those experiences, they have tended to not play well with each other.

Things get heated when Sawyer gets her wish to partner up with the nationally recognized crime reporter at their Sacramento newspaper and her beloved grandmother dies. Since she's going home to nearby River Rock for the funeral, she convinces her new boss to let her report on the years-ago murders of two young girls and another - Sawyer's best friend - who went missing but was never found. Meanwhile, The Crew keep busy chasing down and showing the predators who abused them the error of their ways (oh golly, what could possibly go wrong with that scenario)?

For Sawyer, going home puts her right back in the eye of her storm - visiting the parents who at best ignored their daughters and the prison release of one of their abusers. On top of that, no one - including the police - are happy that old rocks are being overturned for all the world to read about in Sawyer's story. There are a few twists here and there, although they're for the most part predictable. Still, it's an action-packed adventure, albeit not what I'd call a totally satisfying one.

Don't Make a Sound by T.R. Ragan (Thomas & Mercer, June 2020); 285 pp.