Hank Phillippi Ryan's The Wrong Girl is a sequel to her 2012 novel The Other Woman--and it's another mile-a-minute mystery featuring star-crossed sleuths Jane Ryland and Jake Brogan.
With her Boston newspaper preparing for a round of layoffs, Jane has more motivation than ever to nail a lead story. Her ex-colleague Tuck's sudden assertion that an adoption agency has just reunited her with a woman who isn't actually her birth mother won't make the front page, but Tuck is insistent that only Jane can help her investigate.
Meanwhile, Jake initially believes the murder of a young woman is a cut-and-dried domestic violence case, but the true story behind the two small children and empty crib found at the scene will rock his assumptions. While others shrug off the crib's presence, Jake keeps thinking an empty crib could mean a missing baby.
As always, Ryan's plot doesn't stall for a second, and she deftly presents the realities of the foster-care system with a reporter's objectivity. While the mystery is excellent, fans of the series will no doubt want to know if Jake and Jane will finally find a way to be together. The two continue their tightrope walk between friendship and something more as their separate investigations cross paths again and again, each constantly weighing their careers against matters of the heart. Fans of mystery's cutest non-couple will love this second outing, and readers new to the series will have no trouble starting with The Other Woman. --Jaclyn Fulwood, youth services manager at Latah County Library District and blogger at Infinite Reads