Fractured Families

By Charlotte Hinger

2018 Colorado Book Award finalist

"Featuring a crime spree and a murderer, both as cold as the Midwestern winter setting, this whodunit will burn like frostbite." —Library Journal

It's the Garden of Eden. And the weather is absolutely freezing!

The discovery of the body of a young man inside the mausoleum of the Civil War veteran who commissioned this bizarre sculpture park makes the blood of Undersheriff Lottie Albright and her husband's Aunt Dorothy run cold. Dorothy Mercer, paying a visit to Western Kansas from Manhattan, may be a bestselling mystery novelist, but she is truly shocked confronting murder firsthand.

But the real bone-chiller is yet to come.

With snow coming on, Lottie and Dorothy act quickly to preserve the crime scene while awaiting the arrival of Sheriff Sam Adams. Eyes, and boots, on the ground, they measure and photograph underneath the park's bizarre parade of tree-high sculptures. Why would they look up?

Reaching Woman stands some forty feet in the air, trapped in stone. And in her arms—a ghastly bundle. It takes the sharp eyes of the old sheriff to spot her burden. It breaks all hearts when it's brought to earth, a second body, so fresh, so frozen, so forlorn.

Lottie, transitioning from local historian to the politicking necessary to organize a regional crime center, is made the lead investigator. It's a test of the concept and of her role as its director. She needs investigators, forensics, technology, manpower—and a psychologist to pit wits with a clearly deranged killer. Her twin, Kansas City's Dr. Josie Albright, is the perfect choice.

Frank Dimon at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, a reluctant champion of the regional concept, believes too many members of Lottie's family—her veterinarian/deputy husband Keith, Josie, even Dorothy—are on Lottie's team. But Frank's insertion of a forensic psychologist of his own choosing sets off a ferocious conflict between Josie and his appointee, Dr. Evan Ferguson, as a hastily assembled crew from the region's counties pits rural wisdom against the KBI's sophisticated methods. Frustration mounts and urgency grows as more statues of women cradling victims are found, the vicious winter weather aiding the psychopath's work.

No matter how cutting edge the technology, you can't beat luck. In a break from the stress, Lottie begins to read a Commonplace Book deposited at the Historical Society. As she follows the heartbreaking words penned by a desperate, shunned child of stunning inner beauty and strength, his observations provide the key—at a terrible cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Mar 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781464205644

Charlotte Hinger

Charlotte Hinger is an award-winning novelist and Kansas historian. The first book in her Lottie Albright series, Deadly Descent, won the AZ Book Publishers’ Award, Best Mystery/Suspense. Hidden Heritage won Kirkus Reviews 100 Best Mysteries & 100 Best Fiction Books of 2013. Fractured Families was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Charlotte lives in Colorado.

Reviews for Fractured Families

[cathyskye · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's been too long since Charlotte Hinger's last Lottie Albright mystery. She is so adept at combining fascinating Kansas history with her mysteries that I never want to miss reading a single one. Only one thing prevented Fractured Families from being one of my best reads of the year: the killer was so obvious and over-the-top to me. Fortunately, there is much more to the book than whodunit-- and I loved the rest.Carleton County-- dubbed by one character as "the Bermuda Triangle for crime"-- can be counted as a character in Hinger's books. The weather usually makes its presence felt, this time as a ground blizzard that will have you reaching for extra blankets and thinking about the thermostat as you turn the pages. Two characters (besides Kansas) were stand-outs for me: Franklin Slocum, the young boy who wrote the commonplace book, and Aunt Dorothy "That's why I'm on the bestseller list" Mercer. The life that Franklin had to endure broke my heart, and Dorothy's skills and personality made me laugh while I admired her.If you're like me and enjoy crime fiction with a strong dose of history, you simply cannot go wrong with Charlotte Hinger's Lottie Albright mysteries. I hope to be reading them for a good long time.