River Bodies

River Bodies by Karen Katchur
Thomas & Mercer: 11/1/18
eBook review copy; 290 pages
ISBN-13: 9781503902398 

River Bodies by Karen Katchur is a so-so novel about relationships rather than a murder mystery. It is not a thriller.

Becca Kingsley lives across the Delaware River from where she grew up in Portland, Pennsylvania and where her estranged father still lives. After his constant cheating on her mom, his decision to send her away to boarding school, and her parents' divorce, she hasn't seen him for years. Now she is a veterinary surgeon on the New Jersey side of the river where she lives with her beloved dog Romy and her cheating boyfriend, Matt. Occasionally she sees a relative watching her from the Pennsylvania side when she is out for a run with Romy. When she learns from her mom that her father is dying and Matt cheats on her, again, she takes off back across the river to see her father who is being taken care of by his current girlfriend.

At the same time a body is found downstream, shot and gutted, like a deer. The body resembles a case her father had twenty years ago, when he was the police chief. It seems that both cases may be tied to the local biker gang, the Scions. When her high school boyfriend, Parker Reed, shows up as the Pennsylvania State Police lead detective on the murder case, she begins to rekindle her feelings for him. But Becca has more clues to the answers to solve both cases than she is admitting.
 
The technical quality of the writing is good, so I have no qualms with that. The plot, however, is another story. The narrative alternates between what happens to Becca in the present and what happened in her past. This is not a murder mystery. You know the guilty party immediately and you pretty much know who was guilty twenty years ago. There is no motive given, but it's not pertinent to the novel. What it is, however, is a story about lying, cheating men and the women who put up with them until someone else arrives to save the day.

I guess now is the time to admit that I didn't care for Becca and had little patience for her. I simple never connected to Becca and felt very little compulsion to finish the story, other than a commitment to read and review it. Becca needed some introspection and backbone. After all the flashbacks to her cheating father, she should have dumped Matt, no matter how good looking he was (seriously?) the first time he cheated. There is no need to go on; 1 star for the book, 1 for decent writing. Read this only if you like some lite-mystery around a sort-of romance novel.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Thomas & Mercer.