Review: Fractured Truth by Susan Furlong

Title: Fractured Truth by Susan Furlong
Bone Gap Travellers Series Book Two
Publisher: Kensington
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 288 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

When the mutilated remains of a young woman are found in an Appalachian Mountain cave, newly sworn-in deputy sheriff Brynn Callahan is forced to track down a killer driven by twisted motives . . .  

Not long after donning the uniform of the McCreary County Sheriff’s department in Bone Gap, Tennessee, ex-Marine Brynn Callahan faces her first official homicide. On a cold February morning, a lone cross-country skier stumbles across the mutilated body of a young woman. Sent to investigate, Brynn is shocked when she recognizes the victim as a fellow Traveller, Maura Keene.

Maura held a solid standing both within the Travellers’ insular community and among the settled townspeople—a fact that makes her murder all the more disturbing to Brynn, who also straddles the two worlds.  After her trained K-9, Wilco, digs up human bones, and then a scrap of paper scrawled with arcane Latin phrases is uncovered, Brynn finds evidence leading her to question those closest to her—and closing the case becomes a deeply personal matter.

While trying to suppress local superstitions and prejudices, Brynn discovers that Maura was keeping a dangerous secret. And as the bones Wilco found are analyzed by forensics, Brynn harbors the troubling suspicion that she knows who they belong to. Still struggling with PTSD, Brynn must put her career on the line and her life at risk to find justice for a woman not unlike herself—haunted by her past, and caught in a vicious cycle she may never
escape . . .

Review:

Fractured Truth by Susan Furlong is a compelling mystery which is set in a small community in the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee. This second installment in the Bone Gap Travellers series can be read as a standalone but I also highly recommend book one, Splintered Silence.

Former Marine Brynn Callahan now works for the sheriff’s department but she still does not fit in with the townspeople or the Irish Travellers. She and her cadaver dog, Wilco, are a formidable team but Brynn’s substance abuse issues and post traumatic stress are becoming a problem on the job. The latest case she is investigating with her boss, Sheriff Frank Pusser, is the particularly gruesome murder of seventeen year old Maura Keene, who is from Brynn’s community. Brynn immediately runs up against her close-knit community who feel she has betrayed her clan by becoming a police officer. She does not fare any better in the “settled” world whose prejudices against the Travellers run deep. Brynn nonetheless presses on and with the help FBI profiler, Joe Grabowski, they follow the puzzling clues. Having infuriated the Mayor, whose son Hatch is a suspect in Maura’s murder, Brynn’s personal demons could lead to the loss of her job. Can Brynn kick the addictions that she relies on to make it through each day? Will she, Joe and Frank unravel the truth about Maura’s killer?

Brynn’s troubled history continues to plague her as she settles into her new career. Scarred both inside and out from her military service, she ignores the warning signs she is not as in control of her life as she believes. Her return to Bone Gap remains uneasy as she walks a fine line between life as a Traveller and her police career. Brynn is quite intelligent with superb instincts but her drinking and pill popping are definitely becoming a liability.  When her beloved Gran is caught in the crossfire, Brynn’s overwhelming guilt puts her in an increasingly downward spiral that could cost her everything she holds dear.

The investigation into Maura’s death reveals some very troubling details about the teenager’s life. When another young woman is reported missing, Brynn and Sheriff Pusser are fairly certain the two cases are connected. However, since the other teenager is from another town, they are at a loss as to find definitive evidence to link them.  As Brynn digs deeper into Maura’s life, she becomes increasingly unsettled by the prejudices expressed by both the townspeople and the Travellers. She is also reminded of her own unhappy school years as the investigation takes her into to orbit of her former friends from high school.

Fractured Truth is a fast-paced mystery with an interesting cast of characters, a unique storyline and an intriguing murder to solve. Brynn is a deeply flawed but incredibly likable lead protagonist. The mystery surrounding Maura’s murder is quite perplexing and the investigation is filled with unexpected twists.  An outstanding addition to Susan Furlong’s  Bone Gap Travellers series that I highly recommend to readers of the genre.