I read a lot of mysteries and watch a lot of crime shows but her first big reveal...I admit, I never saw it coming!!

Beautifully written, “Long Bright River” is a both a family saga and page-turner wrapped around life in a decaying city slamming into the opioid crisis. The protagonist, a policewoman and single mother who patrols a seedier district outside Philadelphia, searches for her opioid-addicted sister as the search for the killer of young women on her beat escalates. We slowly learn about Mickey’s lonely life as protector of her younger sister growing up abandoned by their parents, who now fiercely safeguards her preschool son. I can’t shake the powerful passages describing her pain as she slowly uncovers profession and personal truths. Resolution of both struggles kept me guessing until the very end.

Take your pick of brilliant discussion points: family dynamics, social struggle, and the drama of the hunt for a killer before he strikes again.

LONG BRIGHT RIVER is slow for a while at first. But you want to keep going anyhow. It's well written and obviously setting up a story that will be worth your while. It turns out to be unputdownable.

Most of the book is centered on Michaela's search for her sister, Kacey. Michaela is a cop; Kacey is a drug addict living on the streets. The story is told in alternating THEN and NOW chapters. So you gradually understand more and more of the sisters' background and how the NOW came to be.

LONG BRIGHT RIVER is full of mysteries and unexpected results and solutions. The answers I expected were most often incorrect.

I am so glad I didn't read other reviews of this story before I read it. If I had, I probably would have been given synopses of the story and been unable, then, to anticipate its mysteries as the author had intended.

This is the first time I've given five stars to a book that is slow to start. Believe me, it will be worth your while to read and remember it.