An Unsettled Grave

I have thoroughly enjoyed Carrie Santero and Jacob Rein. An Unsettled Grave is the second in this series but is stand alone. This is a complex plot well concealed, a police procedural that takes place in the scarcely populated area where Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio come together. Lines for jurisdiction are vague, towns are tiny, and the farm-driven economy keeps everyone close to home. Sharing personnel, equipment, and blame across county boundaries and even state lines is the accepted norm. Carrie is a new recruit in the Vieira County detectives working under the aegis of the District Attorney's office. She is young, and female - the first in this position - and it is hard for the older residents and lawmen to accept that she got this rank, this job, on merit. She knows along with the learning curve there is also going to be the necessity to prove her worth in order to acquire respect. Low man on the totem pole, she is into her fourth straight week on-call when she is sent to the neighboring town's hospital in the dark hours of the morning to handle a rape case, the perpetrator believed by the victim to be a policeman. She has made little headway on that case when a group of hunters finds the skeletal foot of a child and all Fire and Police personnel are involved in a search of the forested mountainside for the rest of the remains. Almost everyone is certain these are the bones of Hope Pugh, a 12-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago, the same week two of the towns lost their Chiefs of Police. And the disappearance of Hope is closer to the heart of the wide-spread communities than it first appears. Basically everyone still around is a potential suspect. That grouping would also include several of their men in blue. Even Jacob Rein. I loved the little asides and snippets of police lore and even some unfortunate realities of the job included in this fine novel. Because he is on the job, there is an authenticity to this novel that shines through the work, but whatever the genre, Bernard Schaffer writes a finely honed tale that grabs your mind and involves your humanity in a way I found excellent. There is a reality here that you do not often find in this genre. I am pleased to recommend this work to friends and family. Schaffer is an author I will follow. I received a free electronic copy of this police procedural from Netgalley, Bernard Schaffer, and Kensington Books. Thank you all, for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.

An Uncommon Grave by Bernard Schaffer Santero and Rein #2 Carrie Santero, recently promoted to detective is still not considered “equal” by the men she works with. Many assume she is not really capable and has achieved her promotion based on something other than her competency. In this book we learn more about Carie, the little girl in her life and how she goes about solving cases. We also see Jacob Rein again a few times both in the present and in a story line that takes us back thirty years to when he was twelve and living in a very dysfunctional family situation. There are two criminal cases to be solved by Carrie in this book. One has to do with a rapist pulling women to the side of the road then violating them and the other crime is a missing person cold case that she picks up when the foot bones of a young girl are found in the forest. It is assumed the girl is Hope Pugh, missing thirty years, but then there is the mystery of how she died and what happened to her. Jacob Rein is a mysterious character that seems able to get into the minds of criminals in order to catch them. He has spent time in jail for something I have a feeling he has probably not done. In this book we learn more about his childhood, some of his childhood friends, a young girl that disappeared and of his father and uncle and their part in his life. At around forty-two years of age Jacob has a lot of years left to accomplish much so I am hoping he will get his life back on track so he can officially assist in finding more bad guys in the future. I was definitely taken back in time by mention of the Vietnam War in which Jacob’s father and uncle both served. That the two men came out so different at the end of their time in the service probably has to do with the jobs they held. I believe the two men cared for one another more than either told the other. Their part in this book was...very interesting. I came away from this book satisfied that the bad guys were eventually caught but still wanting to know more about Santero and Rein and that means I am eager to read more by this author as soon as a new book is available. I found myself thinking about how a person can be bigger than life to people in theirr community and yet in reality they are not heroes at all. This was a thought provoking book. It made me think of the cop that pulled me over and hinted at taking me on a date and of another story...one in which my sister-in-law was pulled over by a policeman on her way to Wyoming...on a stretch where women were going missing...and when my brother woke in the back seat the policeman who pulled her over let them drive on. I know there will soon be another crime for Carrie and Jacob to work on and look forward to finding out what it will be. I am also eager to find out more about the backstories of both characters. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC – This is my honest review. 5 Stars