While this short story is labelled a prequel to
novel 'Little Mercies' I have not read that book, which
will be released in July 2014. I had read 'One Breath
Away' by Heather Gudenkauf in which a gunman takes over a
Midwest school, and I was impressed by the quality of the
writing.
LITTLE LIES is set in Cedar City, Iowa. A social worker is
woken by a phone call asking her to attend an unusual
scene. A person has been found dead in a park, and a small
child sits with the deceased. Ellen Moore has children of
her own and can't conceive of anyone leaving a child
outdoors all night in January. When she arrives Ellen is
assured that this is a crime scene but her thoughts are all
for the four-year-old child huddled in an ambulance
refusing to speak.
Thirteen years ago another woman was killed and left under
the same statue in the park, again with a small child as
the only witness. Can there be a connection, or is this
some copycat at work, or is it sheer coincidence? Finding
out is not Ellen's job, but she was also the social worker
at the earlier scene, and the eerie repetition comes back
to haunt her.
Online data searches of everything from county records to
newspapers are involved, while the park is now frequented
by shady people so the victims may have been meeting drug
dealers. This turned out to be an interesting read in that
we see a murderer being pursued by a state official who is
not in the police. The nature of motherhood and the
pursuance of justice are debated, while I found several
resonances with 'One Breath Away'. LITTLE LIES is a bite-
sized crime story, just right to fit in around lunchtime or
as relaxation after a busy day.
In this riveting prequel novella to her novel Little
Mercies, New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf
explores how even the smallest lies can have far-reaching
consequences.
When the body of a woman is discovered in a local park--with
her bewildered four-year-old son sitting beside her--veteran
social worker Ellen Moore is called in to assist in the
police investigation. Positioned beneath a statue of Leto,
the goddess of motherhood, the crime is weighted with
meaning and, Ellen discovers, remarkably similar to one from
a decade past.
Ellen's professional duty is to protect the child, but she's
not equipped to contend with a killer. As she races to
connect the dots, she knows her time is running out. And the
stakes are high: if she fails, another mother is sure to
make the ultimate sacrifice.
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