Heather

Callie Hauser is the new Chief of Police in Pine Lakes, New Jersey. It's a homecoming for Hauser, who grew up in Pine Lakes, but it is not one that is welcomed by everyone, especially those on the force. For starters, Callie is young—just 30 years old—and more seasoned police officers resent that she got a shot at leadership before putting in more time. She is also a woman, a fact that doesn't sit well with the town's misogynistic, all-male police department. It's widely assumed that Callie got the job because she's tight with former police chief Frank Caputo, and those critics are probably right. Frank is the father-in-law of Callie's lifelong best friend, Jane, making Callie close to the Caputos by extension. 

In the opening chapters, an onslaught of intertwined mysteries pushes Callie to her limit. The first hits painfully close to home when Callie arrests her own mother, Jenna, for a DUI and learns a horrifying truth: at sixteen, Jenna found a dead newborn left by the side of the road, triggering a downward spiral into addiction. While Callie privately launches her own cold case investigation into the circumstances surrounding "Baby Doe", Pine Lakes is hit by a sudden surge in dangerous drug overdoses. Then the case turns entirely personal—Jenna disappears shortly after being released, leaving behind only her phone and a drug-filled backpack on a secluded trail.

Handling all of this would be overwhelming for an experienced police chief, and Callie definitely feels the stress of the job. While her day-to-day work is consumed by the search for Jenna and the local drug investigation, she becomes more obsessed with tracking down the truth behind the 1990 Baby Doe case. That personal investigation leads her to learn about Sabrina Riley, a local teenager who was having an affair with an older man and whom the town rumor mill widely believed to be the infant's mother. Sabrina went missing around the time the baby was found, as did her twin sister, Annabelle, and neither has been seen since.

As Callie continues to dig, author Caitlin Mullen interjects a 1990 timeline told from the point of view of Annabelle Riley. While Callie's investigation produces a long list of potential suspects, Annabelle's contemporary account of 1990 gradually whittles down the mystery for readers: Who was the mother of Baby Doe? Who was the father? Why was the newborn abandoned on the side of the road? And what happened to the Riley sisters?

These central mysteries are anchored by richly developed characters, with Callie at the heart of it all. We see every facet of the newly appointed chief—driven by her determination at work yet weighed down by the strain the job places on her personal life. We experience Callie as a best friend to Jane, an unofficial aunt to Jane's daughter Opal, and a young woman open to romance when she meets local scientist Adrian, despite her habit of setting personal relationships aside for her career. The result is a multi-faceted lead who carries a complex story throughout.

The story also maintains a consistent undercurrent highlighting the daily challenges women face, which are amplified for Callie in her role. The narrative addresses everything from pregnancy and predatory men to systemic misogyny and societal barriers, presenting them collectively as another burden Callie and her peers must navigate. While the male characters skew somewhat uniformly hostile toward women, they are balanced enough by the kind-hearted Adrian to let Mullen make her point without rendering the portrayal completely one-dimensional. 

Everything comes together in a deeply satisfying resolution. Compared to the other mysteries I've read this year, Caitlin Mullen's Heather bubbles up close to the top. It is solid from start to finish and strongly recommended.