Tough Customer

Brown’s latest thriller reintroduces a character from her previous outing, Smash Cut (2009): Dodge Hanley, a grizzled investigator who used to be a cop. Dodge is awakened one morning by a call from Caroline King, a woman he hasn’t seen in 30 years—since the day their daughter, Berry, was born. Now Berry is the target of a frightening stalker who has just broken into Caroline’s house and shot Berry’s coworker, Ben Lofland. Dodge reluctantly agrees to travel from Atlanta to Texas to help the police hunt down Berry’s tormentor, the vengeful Oren Starks. The police deputy on the case, Ski Nyland, is suspicious of Berry and convinced she is hiding something. As Dodge works with Ski to track Oren, his feelings for Caroline resurface, and he recalls how they first met—and the reason their torrid relationship came to an end. Though a late-in-the-game twist seems somewhat farfetched, the draw here is the appealing Dodge, a character Brown fans will have no problem rooting for.