REVIEW: THE OTHER GIRL, BY ERICA SPINDLER

 

Officer Miranda Rader of the Harmony, Louisiana PD is known for her honesty, integrity, and steady hand in a crisis—but that wasn’t always so. Miranda comes from the town of Jasper, a place about the size of a good spit on a hot day, and her side of the tracks was the wrong one. She’s worked hard to earn the respect of her coworkers and the community.

When Miranda and her partner are called to investigate the murder of one of the town’s most beloved college professors, they’re unprepared for the brutality of the scene. This murder is unlike any they’ve ever investigated, and just when Miranda thinks she’s seen the worst of it, she finds a piece of evidence that chills her to the core: a faded newspaper clipping about that terrible night fifteen years ago. The night she’d buried, along with her past and the girl she’d been back then. Until now that grave had stayed sealed…except for those times, in the deepest part of the night, when the nightmares came: of a crime no one believed happened and the screams of the girl they believed didn’t exist.

Then another man turns up dead, this one a retired cop. Not just any cop—the one who took her statement that night. Two murders, two very different men, two killings that on the surface had nothing in common—except Miranda.

My Thoughts: From the opening pages of The Other Girl, the reader is wrapped up in a tantalizing tale that will reveal itself in all its complexities as it sweeps back and forth in time. From 2002, when Miranda Rader was a girl called Randi, a girl desperately needing help, but who was not believed because of her history, we find out about a traumatic experience. One that changes her life.

In the present, she has been a good cop with integrity. But suddenly everything is changing, and the Chief who had believed in her is suddenly distrustful…and doing inexplicable things. Is he on the take? Who is he protecting? Even her partner Jake is seemingly there for her…and then not. Who can she trust?

I couldn’t stop rapidly turning pages, trying to sort through the host of possible perpetrators and all the red herrings, trying to find out who might be setting up Miranda as the perp. Someone wise said to her: “Why is this happening? And who is doing it?” Once she figured that out, she would have the answer. And she did, by going back to the beginning of it all. Surprising twists soon led down just the right pathways. 5 stars.

***My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley.