This is book three of the Mason Sharpe Thriller series and Mason is on his way to Florida, when bad weather causes and accident right in front of him. He stops his truck and rushes to both of the vehicles, to see if he can help any of the drivers. He finds both drivers are dead, but on second look, finds a young woman curled up in the foot well of the van involved. He can’t open the door and smashes a window, but the woman crawls away from him, terrified. He rushes back for a crowbar, only to find the woman has disappeared in the meantime. He calls the emergency services and soon has a plethora of ambulances and the local sheriff’s office around. The local sheriff asks him some questions and asks if he could come back to the station to answer some more, at least he would be out of the rain and get a hot drink. When he is asked again for a description of the young woman, her unusual eye colour has Sheriff Rakow producing a picture of a child who disappeared over ten years ago from summer camp, aged just fourteen. She is Delia Crawford and she has never been found. To have her suddenly back in the area of the small town of Able, Alabama, seems highly unlikely. Rakow however believes him, due to Sharpe’s army and police experience. Mason is certain about what he saw, but what he has done, has opened up a whole can of worms!
Mason knows what he saw and Rakow asks him to stay for a few days while he looks into it. He knows something is very wrong in this county and someone Delia’s disappearance and now reappearance is part of it. No one really seems to want to talk about Delia and Rakow’s own father was the sheriff at the time and there are reports online of the original investigation being messed up and evidence hidden. That leads Mason to a nearby author who wrote a book about Delia’s disappearance, to ask more about what happened. He is also being followed by two locals or East European appearance, one of whom took a photo of his truck’s license plate, before he was threatened physically shortly after. That leads to his goof favour with Rakow being broken and Mason told to leave. But that is exactly the wrong thing to do to Mason and it makes him more determined to find out what is really happening in this small county. The ones who organised the attack on him, the Krols, are the sons of a man who owns the local mining rights to a mineral long abandoned. With also a local private hunting camp having far too much security, it all raises questions for Mason and he is determined to work out what is happening. Certain people in the town might want him gone, to keep their secret and nefarious endeavours going, but they will find him like a dog with a bone. He has a scent of something wrong and won’t give up until he finds the answers. A shocking tale of some of the realities of human trafficking and how they can pop up anywhere, especially when people turn their heads and don’t question things that are out of the norm! A very violent ending that is taken to the extreme, so beware if you are a bit squeamish. I look forward to catching up with this character in more of the series. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout ad I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.