High school seniors Nick, Peter and Emmy kill their classmate Sammy Saint John. That’s not a spoiler. After the deed, the three besties go their separate ways and swear they will never return to their backwater town, Savage Ridge.

Sammy’s father, Thomas, and older brother, Ellison, never stop looking for Sammy or believing that Nick and his friends are responsible for Sammy’s death. Except no body has ever been found and the three friends have airtight alibis.

Ten years later, they’ve hired ex Detroit detective-turned PI Sloane Yo to try her luck at cracking the case. First she has to get the three friends back to Savage Ridge, and then she has to see if she can break them or, even better, if being near each other again won’t cause them to crack under the pressure.

The novel is told from a variety of perspectives: Nick, Barry ‘Pop’ Poplar, the town sheriff; Lillian Dempsey, the original investigator hired by the Saint John family; Ellison Saint John and Sloane Yo. The novel flips back and forth between then and now. Then James Saint John ruled Savage Ridge; people were afraid of the power he had to ruin lives. Now, he’s holed up in his mansion dying of cancer. The rest of the characters have their own motives and baggage, particularly Sloane who is clearly fighting some demons but is also smart and tenacious enough to get to the bottom of the motive.

Savage Ridge is a s-l-o-w burn mystery, not a whodunnit, a why-they-done-it. It takes a long time to get where it’s going and I am not really sure it was worth it once I got there. New info that comes in the final act feels a bit like a cheat and a final twist just didn’t land for me. That said, it’s worth the time for a patient reader.