(BCID recycled on 8/21/18)

"Twenty years ago, eleven-year-olds Charlie Page and Scott Ashby were murdered in the city of Bristol, their bodies dumped near a dog racing track. A man was convicted of the brutal crime, but decades later, questions still linger.

For his whole life, filmmaker Cody Swift has been haunted by the deaths of his childhood best friends. The loose ends of the police investigation consume him so much that he decides to return to Bristol in search of answers. Hoping to uncover new evidence, and to encourage those who may be keeping long-buried secrets to speak up, Cody starts a podcast to record his findings. But there are many people who don’t want the case—along with old wounds—reopened so many years after the tragedy, especially Charlie’s mother, Jess, who decides to take matters into her own hands.

When a long-dead body is found in the same location the boys were left decades before, the disturbing discovery launches another murder investigation. Now Detective John Fletcher, the investigator on the original case, must reopen his dusty files and decide if the two murders are linked. With his career at risk, the clock is ticking and lives are in jeopardy…."

Received via LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

Twenty years ago, 11-year-olds Charlie & Scott were murdered. A neighbor of theirs, a mentally challenged young man, was charged & sent to prison for the crime. Cody Swift was best friends with the victims, and by a stroke of luck, was not with them at the time of the murders. Now as an adult and emerging filmmaker, he is haunted by the murders and is not convinced that the man that was sent to prison was the one guilty of the crime. He returns to his hometown of Bristol, England and begins his own podcast, questioning those who may have known something.

The book flip-flops between points of view, alternating between three main characters: Cody and his podcast, the primary detective from the case, and Charlie's mother, who at the time of the murders was very irresponsible and evasive as to her whereabouts on the night of her son's murder. The points of view also alternate from past to present, setting the stage for the reader to try to reconstruct and figure out exactly what happened those twenty years ago.

As a murder "mystery", this was a decent book, although I wasn't overly impressed with the way it was presented. The podcast thing just didn't work for me -- it seemed kind of corny and unconvincing. The detective's character was also puzzling to me. I think it was supposed to be that way, but I couldn't figure out if he was power hungry, a little ignorant, a bad guy, or a combination of the three. Things were more or less wrapped up at the end, with most of the major questions answered and a few small surprises thrown in. But something about this book's flow bothered me, and I can't exactly put my finger on it. It was an okay read, but nothing to be blown away over. I've read one of Macmillan's earlier novels and I have to say that I enjoyed it more than this one.

Dropped in the Little Free Library.

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