Amity Gaige: Heartwood, Imprint: Fleet, paperback coming in May, ebook available,

I guess what drew me to this crime novel was the plot set around the disappearance of Valery Gillis, who goes missing hiking the tough, long Appalachian Trail.

 Leading the search party for her is Beverly, a Maine State Game warden, who is determined and confident to find her. Enter the second main protagonist, a strange elderly bird watcher, Lena, who is impaired living in a care facility and spends a lot of time online befriending some questionable contacts. Valeries diary entries during the search are the third narration in the plot, slowly shedding light to the puzzle of her disappearance.

For some reason I did not like the book as much as I thought I would, never really connected with the characters of Lena or Valerie.  Beverly I could identify the most with. It's a well written mystery but it never fully engaged me.