Shadow Man by Alan Drew

 

Rancho Santa Elena is a bedroom community in California.  Residents come there for the low crime and the excellent public schools, fleeing the dirt and crime of the cities.  The constant construction of new houses is changing the landscape, destroying the ranches and horse trails that had given the city its name.

Detective Ben Wade grew up there.  He left and worked in a city police force but as his daughter, Emma, grew older, he and his wife decided to move back home.  Unspoken was the thought that a move might save his marriage but that didn't work out and his wife, Rachel, is now an ex-wife and Ben lives alone up on the ranch he grew up on.

Now evil has come to the town.  A serial killer is riding the interstates, emerging at night to find victims.  He breaks into houses, often through unlocked doors, and strangles the women he finds there.  The police force is on high alert trying to catch him.  Ben is involved in the case although he is also working the death of a teenage boy found in a strawberry field, the child of immigrants.  Ben worries about his wife and daughter, now alone in a condo and he worries about his town.

Ben was a swimmer at the high school growing up and the teenage boy was also.  Santa Elena has a famous swimming program that produces scholarship level swimmers who win state records and some of whom even make the Olympic team.  But Ben knows there is a dark secret that is the other side of the success and glory that swimming brings the boys.  Somehow it all seems intertwined, the killer, the secrets kept by the city and the boys sacrificed to keep the secret going.  Can Ben save his city?

This is an interesting exploration of several themes.  The erosion of unsettled places as people flee crime, the dark secrets that everyone is suspicious about but not willing to deal with, the effect that teenage trauma can have on adults throughout their lives and the ability to finally confront the evil that has haunted one are all found here.  Readers will be interested in the main character, Ben, and hope that he finds a way forward through the memories that haunt him.  The next book in this series is going to be released later this year and readers will get a chance to see what Ben is like after the events in this book.  This book is recommended for readers of psychological suspense.