My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni
Review by Mirah W. (mwelday)
Tracy Crosswhite has carried guilt related to her sister Sarah’s death for a long time. Almost 20 years ago, Tracy attended an event with her sister and rather than returning home with Sarah afterwards, Tracy went to dinner with her boyfriend. On her way home, Sarah went missing and was presumed murdered, although her body was never found. A suspect was arrested and imprisoned for the crime, but Tracy was always consumed with uncertainty due to her questions about certain facts of the case.
Now, years later, Sarah’s body has been discovered and Tracy begins a quest to discover the truth about Sarah’s death. Tracy pursues her questions and moves closer to finding out the truth; however, there are people who don’t want her digging up old memories and old cases. Tracy’s efforts are discouraged and the people she can trust are very few.
In Dugoni’s first Crosswhite novel, the reader really gets to know the complexity of Tracy’s emotions surrounding her family and the loss of her sister. Tracy initially became a teacher, but her desire to seek justice for her sister drove her to become a homicide detective for the Seattle police. Tracy’s grief and questions are all-consuming, and it impacts her relationships or inhibits her from even having relationships. While Tracy’s character is complex (and I expect even further developed in upcoming novels in the Crosswhite series), the secondary characters are not dismissed. Dugoni creates secondary characters who made me laugh, smile, cringe, and shake my head. These characters add depth and personality to a novel that could otherwise have been taken to a very dark place by Tracy’s obsession with her sister’s murder.
I thought this was a well thought out crime novel, and while Sarah’s mystery is solved by the end, there is a crime Tracy is investigating as a Seattle homicide detective that plays out in the background of the novel. That crime is not solved and I hope it gets carried into book two of the series. I do plan on continuing with the Tracy Crosswhite series and recommend the series to my fellow mystery buffs out there!
Tags: book recommendation, book review, crime novel, Fiction, Mystery
