The last place you look (2017)

Roxane Weary takes a missing-person enquiry with a death-row deadline while struggling with her father’s death and her own drinking. The Columbus private investigator has useful instincts, but grief and poor decisions complicate how she uses them. Lepionka links the old case to questions about whose account the police accepted. This is the first Roxane novel, with a strong personal life and a hard-edged investigation rather than an effortlessly controlled heroine.