Fans of Harry Dolan's Bad Things Happen and Very Bad Men will want to read the prequel The Last Dead Girl, which covers a dark time in protagonist David Loogan's past. Set in 1998, when Loogan still goes by his real name, David Malone, the story begins in a police station, where he is being questioned about the murder of law student Jana Fletcher, whom he's known for only 10 days. The narrative then goes back to one week earlier, when Malone and Fletcher meet one night after she hits a deer with her car. He stops to help, one thing leads to another and the two fall into a passionate, if obviously short-lived, affair.
When she's murdered, he wants to find out why, and discovers the cause may have something to do with her work with the Innocence Project, which involved trying to free a man convicted of killing his wife. Following her footsteps, Malone digs up old, terrifying secrets and puts himself in the crosshairs of Jana's killer.
One of Dolan's gifts is creating capricious and flawed characters who are nevertheless sympathetic. Jana is so well fleshed out and her life so tragic, her death is deeply felt. The tale is told in a nonlinear manner, with time jumps and interludes; the style is effective because it allows Dolan to keep shocking truths hidden until they're ready to be revealed. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, crime-fiction editor, The Edit Ninja.