In this follow-up to Reconstructing Amelia, a New York Times best seller nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Alex awards, a dead baby is found near the prestigious university campus in charming Ridgedale, NJ. New-to-town freelance journalist Molly mourns the recent loss of her own baby even as she covers the event for the local paper, discovering dark sexual secrets going back decades. High school dropout Sandy, looking for her mom, and frazzled PTA president Barbara soon enter the plot. With a 200,000-copy first printing.

When a body is found in Ridgedale—an otherwise quiet suburban New Jersey college town—cub reporter Molly Anderson is unexpectedly given the assignment for the Ridgedale Reader. Molly, who recently suffered a traumatic late-term miscarriage, has finally lifted herself out of a debilitating depression and sees her new job as a way to rebuild her life. But when she discovers that the victim in the river is a newborn girl, Molly is forced to confront the haunting pain of her own baby's death; in the process, she uncovers dirty secrets about a town that strives to maintain its idealized image. The story is told from the point of view of three Ridgedale women (high school dropout Sandy, PTA president Barbara, and Molly) and is supplemented with transcripts, journal entries, and newspaper clippings in a manner reminiscent of McCreight's successful debut novel, Reconstructing Amelia. VERDICT Some elements of this plot and narrative feel contrived and too coincidental, but overall this tightly spun sophomore effort will please fans of Amelia. McCreight has a keen grasp of the epistolary technique and is adept at providing readers the puzzle pieces they need to build a broader picture. A solid follow-up. [See Prepub Alert, 10/5/14.]—Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia

Another thriller for adults that teens will devour. As she did in Reconstructing Amelia (HarperCollins, 2013), McCreight explores how the mistakes made by parents when they themselves were teens are revealed to their children and the devastation they can wreak. Ridgedale looks like the perfect college town and reporter Molly certainly hopes it is the place where she and her husband can recover from the devastating stillbirth of their second child. But when Molly's first assignment in their new town is to cover the discovery of a dead newborn in the campus woods, she has to quickly figure out if her investigation will bring her closure or return her to the depths of grief from which she's just recovered. While the protagonist reports on the gruesome crime, teen Sandy is desperate to find her hard-partying mom before they're evicted. In their parallel searches, Molly and Sandy begin to uncover some very dark secrets in Ridgedale's past. McCreight plants seeds of doubt in all of the protagonists, from the police chief to a high-strung soccer mom. Although some of the plot and the twist ending are slightly predictable, readers will keep flipping through pages. VERDICT Young adult fans of Jodi Picoult or Elizabeth Berg will enjoy this mystery.—Meghan Cirrito, formerly of Brooklyn Public Library