Heather by Caitlin Mullen is a mediocre, middle-of-the-road, typical crime novel. It’s one of those novels I swear I’ve read somewhere else. It has your typical newly installed police chief/detective in a small town, bringing with them their own personal problems from before. Is the chief overworked and understaffed? Of course they are. Is the chief having a hard time fitting in despite trying their best to fit in? You bet. What about including a shady family whose long history with the town gives them a type of power that many residents know not to mess with? You bet your bottom dollar there is. Heather is not a bad crime novel by any means. I just think my expectations, once again, were too high, and this novel in no way met them.

Heather is a story that highlights the extraordinary pressure put on young teenage girls when they are at their most impressionable, and the burden placed on them during an unwanted pregnancy. Combine these years with abject poverty and parental neglect and you’ve got yourself a tragedy waiting to happen. And that’s exactly what Heather gives us in this mystery crime novel. I’m basically playing a game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe to figure out which of the male family members is the culprit of the crime. It does feel a bit weird that the author made Callie only in her early 30s. We learn only just a bit about her time in narcotics upstate prior to moving to the Pines to help take care of her friend and to be made Chief of Police, likely with the help of the previous chief, who is part of her friend’s family.

I liked the story when it shifted to Sabrina and Annabelle. I see some reviewers thought negatively of the book because it introduced too many characters. I didn’t think this was the case at all. However, I do think that the payoff at the end was a bit flat. The big reveal just didn’t feel that way at all. I also thought it was weird that both girls never found out the Coyote’s real name. There were also some things that caught my attention. Because neither Callie nor Annabelle knew the Coyote’s real name, there was a scene where Callie dismissed one of the suspects when she brought this up with her, but this couldn’t be possible because neither woman knew who he actually was based on name alone. It was also a bit weird in the beginning when we learn that Callie and another male family member might have a thing with each other. However, he was 20+ years older than Callie, and it was made worse when we find out what happens at the very end during the reveal. The author, however, makes absolutely no mention of this near blunder.

Heather does have some moments. Mainly, it’s the author highlighting how difficult it can be for girls growing up in a time when they just want to be seen as adults as soon as possible. One mistake is literally all it takes to derail everything. If this sounds like what you think it is, you’re likely on the right track.