2015 saw the release of Laura McHugh’s powerhouse of a debut, THE WEIGHT OF BLOOD. It won numerous awards, including the prestigious International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel.

Since then, McHugh has carved out a niche in the mystery/thriller genre, which is all due to the elements that she consistently utilizes. When you are reading a book of hers, you know that you are going to experience the following: domestic and family relationships (sometimes not the pillar of strength you expect but the reason for the issue); small-town miasma (there are many limitations to living in a small town, and McHugh knows how to expose the darkest of them); and complex characters (she is incapable of creating a character who does not live and breathe off the page and come across as completely believable).

"I applaud [McHugh] for continuing to crank out these dark, small-town tales where wasting away in your own broken and crushed dreams may be the biggest fear of all."

With the release of her latest novel, SAFE AND SOUND, McHugh falls back on all the storytelling elements that have made her successful and tops them with a new feeling --- that of hopelessness. I am sure some readers may be turned off by this sentiment, but McHugh knows what she is doing and blends this overpowering and crippling feeling to full extent here. This is no “cozy” mystery by any stretch of the imagination.

At the start of the novel, Grace has been missing for nearly six years. She was babysitting her cousins, Amelia and Kylee, when she vanished from their farmhouse, leaving behind blood in the kitchen. Thankfully, Amelia and Kylee were found unharmed in their bedroom. They are now in their senior year of high school and have some big decisions to make. In the small town of Beaumont, Missouri, the future is never promised to you and often ends the same for most members of the community.

Amelia (who handles the bulk of the narration) and Kylee are still seeking the answers that never came regarding Grace’s disappearance. Grace was smart, intuitive and perfect in their eyes, and not knowing what happened to her haunts them on a daily basis. She emphasized to them the fear of being trapped by Beaumont and smothered in a way that nearly every citizen has been. She had been making plans to ensure this would not happen to her.

But Grace not having a chance to fulfill those goals --- and, even worse, not being able to show Ameila and Kylee how she did it --- is the real tragedy of this novel. Grace’s family and those who remember her continue to mourn her through vigils around the anniversary of her disappearance, but it doesn’t solve anything or provide the solace that her cousins so badly need.

When bones are uncovered that might be Grace’s, Amelia and Kylee decide to take action. They contact the local law enforcement team for answers, and all of this new activity briefly takes them away from the blueprints they have created for their big senior year. Hopefully, those blueprints will give them the pathway to escaping Beaumont. The problem is that they are preoccupied with the mystery surrounding Grace and need to have closure before they can solve their own mysteries of life.

SAFE AND SOUND will not resound with every reader, and that is because of the ending, which I will not discuss here. I will just say that Laura McHugh remains true to herself and her novel. She recognizes that not everyone’s story works out the way they thought it would. I applaud her for continuing to crank out these dark, small-town tales where wasting away in your own broken and crushed dreams may be the biggest fear of all.