Throughout her impressive career, J.T. Ellison has written or co-written more than 30 psychological thrillers and domestic noir novels, and she doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. LAST SEEN is her latest book, and it’s based on dark family secrets that threaten the life of a forensic scientist.

Things have not been going well for Halley James, which actually is a gross understatement. Her marriage is all but over, and she just lost her job due to a controversial technicality at the National Investigative Sciences Laboratory. With all this free time suddenly on her hands, she returns to her hometown of Marchburg, Virginia, to take care of her sick father, Quentin, who is about to undergo emergency surgery.

"Readers of LAST SEEN will feel themselves falling down the same rabbit hole that has consumed Halley. Add to this the deft plotting that has become a J.T. Ellison trademark, and you can count on a guaranteed satisfying read."

Unfortunately for Halley, her life is going to get much worse before it gets better. While her father is recovering in the hospital, she uncovers some old newspaper articles indicating that her mother, Susannah, was murdered at the age of 35 and that Halley’s then-16-year-old sister, Cat, was the prime suspect. This rocks her world, to say the least, as she had been told that Susannah and Cat were killed in a car accident.

Never in Halley’s wildest dreams did she think she would have to deal with the possibility that her own sister may have killed their mother and could still be out there somewhere. She confronts Quentin and his new wife but is not satisfied with what they have to say. They simply warn her to leave everything alone. Halley has nothing to lose and is determined to get the answers she needs to be able to navigate this new reality she has been handed.

Halley’s connections all lead to the same place, Brockville, Tennessee, where she eventually finds herself in police custody as the suspect in a murder tied to Cat. It seems that Cat had come to Brockville once as part of a well-known writer’s retreat and then suddenly disappeared. Once the authorities release Halley following evidence that she is nothing more than a concerned sister, she is able to delve further into Brockville’s history and the interesting inhabitants who make up this very incestuous place.

Brockville is full of secrets and makes for the perfect mysterious locale for Cat to have vanished into. The body count continues to rise, and Halley gets word that her sister may be living with a cult located deep in the woods. The actual answers are far worse than the rumors Halley is following, and she realizes that finding Cat may be the biggest mistake she has ever made.

Readers of LAST SEEN will feel themselves falling down the same rabbit hole that has consumed Halley. Add to this the deft plotting that has become a J.T. Ellison trademark, and you can count on a guaranteed satisfying read.