The River Killings

by: Merry Jones

Published by: Thomas Dunne Books

Reviewed by Sharon Broom

Merry Jones, author of The Nanny Murders, has another book out in the new Zoe Hayes mystery series. Her latest outing is The River Killings.

Zoe Hayes is a Philadelphia divorcee, an art therapist and adoptive mother of six-year-old, Molly. She's in a serious relationship with Detective Nick Stiles and is secretly hoping that marriage is on the horizon.

Zoe is on vacation and has taken up sculling with her best friend Susan Cummings (a talkative, high-powered attorney). They decide to take a late-night row on the Schuylkill River in preparation for an upcoming regatta.

Susan pushes the duo to the edge of speed and exhaustion and the women flip the skull when they hit something in the water. What they run into are the bodies of nineteen women who were from another country and being held as slaves by human traffickers.

Zoe has a problem with trust and Nick doesn't divulge much information, so she sets out, following several unusual experiences, to learn the who and why of the bodies. If she isn't successful, it may mean she or the people she loves might lose their lives.

Jones has an interesting and unique plot about a problem that is getting greater attention in the United States. And I enjoyed the mystery.

I had a problem with Zoe's young daughter Molly. Although she's only six, her dialog sounds like that of a pre-teen and was distracting. I would have liked to have the secondary plot see a little more page time and felt that everything was wrapped up neatly in an extremely short period of time. It was like Jones realized she was coming to the end of her manuscript word count and had to wrap up the story.

Armchair Interviews says: An interesting story with some major flaws.