She Treads Softly: The Bad Neighbor

Sunday, September 22, 2024

The Bad Neighbor

The Bad Neighbor by Jenifer Ruff
10/1/24; 310 pages
Greyt Companion Press/BooksGoSocial
Agent Victoria Thriller #9

The Bad Neighbor by Jenifer Ruff is a highly recommended investigative thriller. This is the ninth book in the series featuring FBI Agent Victoria Heslin but can easily be read as a standalone novel.

Chris and Zoey Hamilton have just moved from California into their dream home, a fixer-upper in the affluent Virginia community of Mountain Meadows. The house was the home of a notorious embezzler Steve Johnson who disappeared without a trace five years and his wife decided to sell it. The two are trying to fix it up while building a new life together when Zoey suddenly disappears.

FBI Special Agent Victoria Heslin and her fiancé veterinarian Ned Patterson also live in Mountain Meadows. When out running early one morning they discover two dogs running free without an owner around. The dogs belonged to Zoey and while returning them Victoria learns that Zoey is missing. She and Ned help look for her on the trails and then Chris contacts the police. It appears that something happened to Zoey, leaving her dogs to run loose. Since Victoria and Ned were taking the week off, they become involved in the search for Zoey.

This is a nightmare neighborhood full of people who are potential suspects, with the exception of Victoria and Ned. The narrative moves back and forth in time through mainly three different viewpoints, with a fourth added later. Chapters follow Zoey's story leading up to her disappearance, the opinions of a snobbish neighbor named Grace, and Victoria in the present day investigation. All of the characters are delineated as individuals and it is easy to distinguish between them.

The investigation moves a quick pace with short chapters alternating the points-of-view and time periods. This choice helps keep interest high as clues are discovered in both timelines and it introduces all the suspicious neighbors. The pages flew by quickly as both timelines are equally compelling. Thanks to BooksGoSocial for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.