The author of nine mystery novels, Hank Phillippi Ryan is --- like her protagonist, Jane Ryland --- an on-air investigative reporter in Boston. SAY NO MORE is the fifth installment in this series. A reader coming to the series without the background of the previous four won’t have much trouble picking up the threads: Jane is a likable millennial (she’s 34) who’s secretly engaged to homicide detective Jake Brogan. She is transitioning out of the daily grind of on-air reporting to a documentary unit that the station has just launched. Their first exposéis on sexual assault on Boston’s college campuses, and the producer to whom Jane has been assigned, Fiola (Fee) Morrello, starts out as unsympathetic, but the two women bond in their mutual eagerness to get their story out.

"Hank Phillippi Ryan has added some intriguing debates about the boundaries between Massachusetts law and personal ethics, which play a role in the denouement."

As one would expect from a mystery written by a sure-handed pro, there are multiple characters, plots and subplots that interweave, with (almost) all of them neatly tied up at the end of the book. There are the administrators at Adams Bay, a private college whose star professor has died under mysterious circumstances, and are covering up secrets about her and her students. Avery Morgan, the professor who just moved from Hollywood where she was a screenwriter, had a connection to her neighbors, one of whom may have witnessed her death. Her student, Isabel Russo, is traumatized in her apartment after another student (also a murder suspect) raped her --- until Jane persuades her to go public with her story.

These are just a few of the plots that keep the reader engaged and occasionally confused. Throw in the mafia, a vengeful Hollywood producer, a couple in witness protection, Jake’s partner who may be dying, and, of course, Jake and Jane’s ongoing relationship, and there’s a lot to keep track of. Some stories turn out to be red herrings, but others are beautifully explored. That’s especially true of Isabel’s story. Her pain and confusion are sensitively rendered, and her emergence from those are triumphant.

Hank Phillippi Ryan has added some intriguing debates about the boundaries between Massachusetts law and personal ethics, which play a role in the denouement. What exactly is criminal: witnessing a crime and not acting --- or not telling? Next time around, it will be interesting to see if she can build on that.