Book Blurb:
All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers: Everyone from Wakarusa, Indiana, remembers the case of January Jacobs, who was found dead in a ditch hours after her family awoke to find her gone. Margot Davies was six at the time, the same age as January—and they were next-door neighbors. In the twenty years since, Margot has grown up, moved away, and become a big-city journalist, but she’s always been haunted by the fear that it could’ve been her. And the worst part is, January’s killer has never been brought to justice. When Margot returns home to help care for her sick uncle, it feels like walking into a time capsule. Wakarusa is exactly how she remembered: genial, stifled, secretive. Then news breaks about five-year-old Natalie Clark from the next town over, who’s gone missing under eerily similar circumstances. With all the old feelings rushing back, Margot vows to find Natalie and solve January’s murder once and for all.
My Review: 3.5 stars
All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers is a suspenseful mystery that reminded me of the Jon-Benet Ramsey case. The author is well-known from her podcast from Crime Junkie which is heard by hundreds of thousands around the world. It only makes sense that she’d try her hand at writing, as she obsesses about criminal cases and unsolved murders. She must have a lot of ideas knocking around in her head.
I enjoyed the location of these small Indiana towns and Flowers was wonderful at giving apt descriptions of that lifestyle. Told from two POVs and jumping back and forth from two timelines in 1994 and 2019 worked well for the story. The narration was well-done, and I appreciated the performance.
Honestly, I don’t read a ton of mystery novels as they begin to blend and morph together for me. I listened to this about two months ago and I had to pick up my copy of the book to remember who did it. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, but I do recall being 100% engaged until the last quarter of the book when everything happened too quickly. The investigative journalist was a perfect tool to go digging and having her uncle as an unreliable narrator due to his dementia worked quite well.
I’m sure mystery lovers and crime junkies will love this!
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