For readers of Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, a small-town detective reopens an unsolved case, sending shock waves across generations of women in this gripping new mystery from the Edgar Award–winning author of Please See Us.
HEATHER
by Caitlin Mullen
Celadon Books, June 2026
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

Photograph by Sylvie Rosokoff
1994. In the myth-riddled woods of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, sixteen-year-old Annabelle Riley’s twin sister, Sabrina, has been having an affair with a mysterious older man, and Annabelle is determined to uncover what’s going on. Then, inexplicably, both sisters disappear.
In this same town years later, newly instated Police Chief Callie Hauser makes an arrest that unexpectedly resurrects details from a heartbreaking cold case. As she digs deeper, the past and the present collide, challenging everything Callie believes about right and wrong, about who she is, and about the town she’s always called home.
A propulsive mystery as incisive as it is forgiving, Heather bears a visceral reminder that the truth of a woman’s life is often complicated and unknowable―to those on the outside, and sometimes even to herself.
Caitlin Mullen is the author of Please See Us, which won the 2021 Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was named a New York Times best crime novel in 2020. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and children.

Welcome to Christmas, a town so cozy and charming it could be the backdrop of a Hallmark movie, where crime is never in season and it’s the holidays all year round. So when a tourist is found stabbed to death by an icicle in the middle of the town nativity scene, the local police are out of their depth―after all, how do you find a criminal in a town where crime doesn’t exist?
Caleb had it all—brilliant wife, adorable son, fantastic career as CFO at a hot tech startup. But he screws up and in one moment it all vanishes.
It’s a ticket to paradise. Flight 868 has nonstop service to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Over a dozen tipsy passengers are off to a destination wedding. A team of high school baseball players are headed to a tournament. The plane is packed with people eager to escape their lives, and others who can’t wait to return to their beloved home.