FACE HER FEAR

4 stars out of 5

This book - the 19th in the series - is a bit of a departure from the usual case-solving procedural featuring Denton Police Department Detective Josie Quinn. Here, she's more than a little bit out of her usual element, taking part in a trauma recovery program at an isolated Pennsylvania retreat after losing a dear friend and colleague and having a meltdown of sorts that involves her husband Noah.

There are six participants in all - five women and one man - led by a Zen-like therapist named Sandrine, who organized the retreat and loves helping everyone get in touch with their feelings. Everyone there is a victim of some kind of trauma, which they're invited to share either in group sessions or with Sandrine privately. To spook things up a bit, no cell phones, laptops or other communication devices are allowed, nor is Josie allowed to bring a weapon - she's not there as an officer of the law, and besides, she's no longer within her jurisdiction. Amid all that, a huge snowstorm appears out of nowhere (with all of today's technology, I must say I found it implausible that any meterorologist worth his or her salt could possibly have missed a storm of that magnitude, but hey).

In really short order, everyone becomes snowbound and virtually unreachable on a mountaintop with enough food, burnable wood and generator-produced electricity to last the week - if they're prudent. By now, you know what's coming next: one of the participants, a woman named Meg, is found dead in the woods; and although Josie knows Meg was murdered, she has no authority to investigate - and worse, no way of contacting anyone in the outside world.

From that point on, Josie tries to put her crime-solving skills to work while knowing there's little she can do even if she does identify the killer - one who almost certainly is among them. Problem is - at least for me - she just can't seem to get her own act together; much of her time is spent amid self-doubt and unfounded speculation. While I understand her personal conflicts and the reasons she's at the retreat in the first place (well, except for her knee-jerk interaction with Noah, which I honestly couldn't relate to at all), that constant second-guessing didn't grab me much. Happily, enough facts and hard evidence were interspersed to keep things interesting and hold my attention throughout (to that end, another of the retreat participants turning up missing and Josie's revelation that cameras have been hidden throughout the buildings certainly helped).

By the finish line, everything gets resolved, and although it's no secret to series followers that Josie will live to see another installment, exactly how it all comes together is for me to know and other readers to find out (yes, there are a few surprises). All in all, an entertaining read once again - for which I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the pre-release copy.

Face Her Fear by Lisa Regan (Bookouture, January 2024); 385 pp.