The Taken Ones: A Novel (Steinbeck and Reed)

Two girls vanished. A woman buried alive. Between two crimes lie decades of secrets yet to be unearthed in a pulse-pounding novel by the Edgar Awardnominated author of Unspeakable Things. Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out, dead silent, her memory gone. The mystery of the Taken Ones captures the nation. Summer 2022: Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicidea woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace belonging to one of the vanished girls. Van follows her gut. Harry trusts in facts. Theyre both desperate to catch a killer before he kills again. They have something else in common: each has ties to the original case in ways theyre reluctant to share. As Van and Harry connect the crimes of the past and the present, Van struggles with memories of her own nightmarish childhoodand the fear that uncovering the truth of the Taken Ones will lead her down a path from which she, too, may never return.