River Bodies by Karen Katchur

Thomas and Mercer, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5039-0239-8

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

River Bodies is being billed as a thriller, and… it isn’t.  Really.  Calling it a thriller is pigeonholing a book that has a lot more to offer. It’s not “blow you away” exciting, and it doesn’t have simple characters, like most thrillers.  This book is a good deal more.  With its beautifully drawn characters, interactions between them, and outstanding writing, you have a story that is a bit of everything: excitement, intrigue, romance, and characters learning what’s really important to them.  If anything, it’s a study of three very different people who grew up around the same time, in the same place, but wound up walking very different paths.

Becca is a 30 year old veterinarian in New Jersey.  Her life is going fine, minus her struggles with her boyfriend’s infidelity.  She learns that her father, who she despises, is on the last legs of his battle with cancer, so she crosses the river to her childhood home in Pennsylvania to see him.   Unbeknownst to her, the morning she crosses, she sees John Jackson, who she grew up with, at the scene of a murder he just committed (telling you that Jackson is the killer does not give anything away: the author reveals that Jackson is the guilty party in the second chapter).  On Becca’s return home, she runs into Parker, her childhood flame, now the chief of police in her hometown, and in charge of the murder investigation.

The story builds through the perspective of all three characters, as they find themselves drawn back into each other’s lives, through a complex web of events, circumstances, and relationships.  The backstory of the characters is also prominent, as it turns out that a similar murder happened years ago.  Becca’s dad was chief of police at the time, and he may have hidden information that could have brought the murderer to justice.

As noted before, this isn’t a roller coaster ride with desperate chases, wild shootouts or breakneck car chases, like most thriller novels: there really isn’t that much action at all.  What carries the story is the author’s excellent writing, especially as shown in the character development.  All three of the leads are extremely well done, with a lot of emotional depth.  The best, and the most intriguing, is John Jackson, the killer, who is an enforcer for a local motorcycle gang.  As one would expect, he isn’t a good person, living the standard biker life of drinking, skirt-chasing, and terrorizing other people.  But he does have his good qualities, ones that become important later in the book.  Flashbacks provide understanding of how the characters developed: they are handled smoothly, and written well enough that you don’t get confused with the back and forth between the two time periods.  There are a few implausible moments in the book where you will have to suspend disbelief, but they are easily overlooked and don’t detract from the story.

Overall, it’s a well written story that should appeal to a wide audience, and at only 290 pages, one that is easily digestible and doesn’t require a substantial investment of time.  Recommended.

Contains: mild violence

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson