Category: Mystery/Thriller

From the bestselling author of Where the Lost Wander and What the Wind Knows comes the evocative story of two people whose paths collide against the backdrop of mystery, murder, and the Great Depression.

Chicago, 1923: Ten-year-old Dani Flanagan returns home to find police swarming the house, her parents dead. Michael Malone, the young patrolman assigned to the case, discovers there’s more to the situation—and to Dani Flanagan herself—than the authorities care to explore. Malone is told to shut his mouth, and Dani is sent away to live with her spinster aunts in Cleveland.

Fifteen years later, Michael Malone is summoned to Cleveland to investigate a series of murders that have everyone stumped, including his friend and famed Prohibition agent Eliot Ness, now Cleveland’s director of safety. There, in a city caught in the grip of a serial killer, Malone’s and Dani’s paths cross once again.

Malone is drawn to Dani and her affinity for the dead and compassion for the destitute. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that she could help him solve his case. As terror descends on the city and Malone and Dani confront the dark secrets that draw them together, it’s a race to find the killer or risk becoming his next victims.

Review:

Absorbing, intense, and evocative!

The Unknown Beloved is a gripping, suspenseful tale predominantly set in Cleveland in the late 1930s when the city was still feeling the devastating effects of the depression, poverty was still rampant, mobsters were finally getting their comeuppance, and a serial killer, appropriately named “The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run” had Michael Malone pounding the pavement undercover, and using intuition, intelligence, instincts, and the help of the lovely Dani Kos and her special ability to see through touch to try and stop his reign of terror.

The prose is rich and expressive. The characters are complex, flawed, and tenacious. And the plot, including all the subplots, seamlessly intertwine and unravel into an immersive tale of life, loss, duty, deception, manipulation, depravity, violence, murder, magical realism, and the intricacies of policing in the early twentieth century.

I have yet to read a novel by Harmon that I didn’t really enjoy, and The Unknown Beloved is no exception. It’s a tense, taut, riveting tale loosely based on a real-life crime that reminds us that taking down the evil that loves to hide amongst normality has always been a painstakingly dangerous job performed by selfless, often humble, unknown heroes.

This novel is available now.

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