Thrillers & Suspense
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All Good People Here: A Novel
In the propulsive debut novel from the host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie, a journalist uncovers her hometown's dark secrets when she becomes obsessed with the unsolved murder of her childhood neighbor-and the disappearance of another girl twenty years later.
You can't ever know for sure what happens behind closed doors.
Everyone from Wakarusa, Indiana, remembers the infamous case of January Jacobs, who was discovered in a ditch hours after her family awoke to find her gone. Margot Davies was six at the time, the same age as January-and they were next-door neighbors. In the twenty years since, Margot has grown up, moved away, and become a big-city journalist. But she's always been haunted by the feeling that it could've been her. And the worst part is, January's killer has never been brought to justice.
When Margot returns home to help care for her uncle after he is diagnosed with early-onset dementia, she feels like she's walked into a time capsule. Wakarusa is exactly how she remembers-genial, stifled, secretive. Then news breaks about five-year-old Natalie Clark from the next town over, who's gone missing under circumstances eerily similar to January's. With all the old feelings rushing back, Margot vows to find Natalie and to solve January's murder once and for all.
But the police, Natalie's family, the townspeople-they all seem to be hiding something. And the deeper Margot digs into Natalie's disappearance, the more resistance she encounters, and the colder January's case feels. Could January's killer still be out there? Is it the same person who took Natalie? And what will it cost to finally discover what truly happened that night twenty years ago?
Twisty, chilling, and intense, All Good People Here is a searing tale that asks: What are your neighbors capable of when they think no one is watching?
You can't ever know for sure what happens behind closed doors.
Everyone from Wakarusa, Indiana, remembers the infamous case of January Jacobs, who was discovered in a ditch hours after her family awoke to find her gone. Margot Davies was six at the time, the same age as January-and they were next-door neighbors. In the twenty years since, Margot has grown up, moved away, and become a big-city journalist. But she's always been haunted by the feeling that it could've been her. And the worst part is, January's killer has never been brought to justice.
When Margot returns home to help care for her uncle after he is diagnosed with early-onset dementia, she feels like she's walked into a time capsule. Wakarusa is exactly how she remembers-genial, stifled, secretive. Then news breaks about five-year-old Natalie Clark from the next town over, who's gone missing under circumstances eerily similar to January's. With all the old feelings rushing back, Margot vows to find Natalie and to solve January's murder once and for all.
But the police, Natalie's family, the townspeople-they all seem to be hiding something. And the deeper Margot digs into Natalie's disappearance, the more resistance she encounters, and the colder January's case feels. Could January's killer still be out there? Is it the same person who took Natalie? And what will it cost to finally discover what truly happened that night twenty years ago?
Twisty, chilling, and intense, All Good People Here is a searing tale that asks: What are your neighbors capable of when they think no one is watching?
Short Excerpt Teaser
One
Krissy, 1994
The residents of Wakarusa, Indiana, could spin gossip faster than a spider spins its web. Each time one of their own did something they shouldn't-when Abby Schmuckers got caught shoplifting lipstick from the dime store; when the Becker kid dropped out of the 4-H volunteer club; when Jonah Schneider fell asleep and snored in church-the Wakarusa gossip chain would flap their jaws, chewing the tidbit over so thoroughly that by the time they'd finally spat it out again, the Truth was misshapen and unrecognizable, warped into the Story. And because the people of Wakarusa were churchgoing, law-abiding, capital-G God-fearing people, the Story was always adorned with pearls of sweetness to coat its sharp edges: Bless her heart, but . . . I'll be praying for them, because did you hear . . . ? Lord have mercy on their souls.
Even before everything happened, Krissy Jacobs had understood the power of Wakarusa's rumor mill, which is why she so stringently avoided its teeth. She went to church every Sunday, she dressed her daughter in pink and her son in blue, she wore the right shoes and made sure her husband had the right ties. It wasn't because she believed any of it mattered; it was simply because she had so much to lose. This life-her family, their farm and house-wasn't what she'd wanted, wasn't even close, but it was more than she'd ever had before, and so she held on to it, hands tight.
On the day it all slipped through her fingers, Krissy got up to the sound of her alarm at 5 a.m. like she had every other morning in her life as a farmer's wife. She slid out of bed quietly so as not to disturb Billy, even though the alarm was for him too. Then she stepped out of the darkened bedroom and made her way down the old wooden staircase to the kitchen.
She spotted the writing on the wall before she even made it down the last step, her breath kicking out of her lungs. Scrawled in blood-red oversized letters read three horrific messages: f*** your family . . . that bitch is gone . . . this is what you get.
Krissy's heart pounded hard and painful against her ribs. Her first thought-bizarre and ill-fitting-was that the words looked so . . . intrusive here, on her old but pristine white walls, in the falling-apart-but-still-beautiful kitchen. Those nasty, violent words didn't belong in quaint Wakarusa, Indiana, full of good, pious people. When the town got wind of this, Krissy knew, those words would taint every member of her family for the rest of their lives.
She stood on the bottom step, shaking. Though the sun was not yet up and her mind was foggy, it was clear these words were the advent of something terrible. that bitch is gone, Krissy read again, and this time shame colored her panic. Here something was horribly, horribly wrong, and all she'd been able to think was What will the neighbors say?
Two
Margot, 2019
Margot pulled up to the curb outside her uncle Luke's house, turned off the engine, and slumped back against her seat. Through the passenger-side window, she gazed up at the squat seventies ranch-style and her body prickled with dread. The last time she'd spent the night here in Wakarusa, in the town where she grew up, was twenty years ago. She'd been eleven.
Margot's hometown was originally called Salem, but the name was changed in the 1850s to avoid confusion with the other Indiana Salem. The etymology had gotten lost to history, but conventional wisdom was that the Native American Wakarusa could be translated to "knee-deep in mud." Both the old name and the new struck Margot as uncanny in their appropriateness. One evoked the killing of innocent girls, the other insinuated just how hard it was to leave. Though to Margot, the mud seemed more like quicksand. The more you fought it, the more it pulled you under. For years she thought she'd escaped, and now here she was, back again.
But more than just the town, what was making Margot's heart pound now was what version of her uncle she was going to get tonight. The real one. Or the bad one.
She took a deep breath, then grabbed her bags from the back seat and made her way up the path. On her uncle's front landing was a bulb in a wire cage illuminating the space with a flickering yellow light. The sound of moths beating their bodies against it reminded Margot of childhood summers here-long, hot days of skinned knees and calves cut up from fields of corn. She lifted a fist and knocked.
After a moment, Margot heard the plunk of a dead bolt, then the door creaked slowly, barely, open. Her pasted-on smile faltered.
"Un...
Krissy, 1994
The residents of Wakarusa, Indiana, could spin gossip faster than a spider spins its web. Each time one of their own did something they shouldn't-when Abby Schmuckers got caught shoplifting lipstick from the dime store; when the Becker kid dropped out of the 4-H volunteer club; when Jonah Schneider fell asleep and snored in church-the Wakarusa gossip chain would flap their jaws, chewing the tidbit over so thoroughly that by the time they'd finally spat it out again, the Truth was misshapen and unrecognizable, warped into the Story. And because the people of Wakarusa were churchgoing, law-abiding, capital-G God-fearing people, the Story was always adorned with pearls of sweetness to coat its sharp edges: Bless her heart, but . . . I'll be praying for them, because did you hear . . . ? Lord have mercy on their souls.
Even before everything happened, Krissy Jacobs had understood the power of Wakarusa's rumor mill, which is why she so stringently avoided its teeth. She went to church every Sunday, she dressed her daughter in pink and her son in blue, she wore the right shoes and made sure her husband had the right ties. It wasn't because she believed any of it mattered; it was simply because she had so much to lose. This life-her family, their farm and house-wasn't what she'd wanted, wasn't even close, but it was more than she'd ever had before, and so she held on to it, hands tight.
On the day it all slipped through her fingers, Krissy got up to the sound of her alarm at 5 a.m. like she had every other morning in her life as a farmer's wife. She slid out of bed quietly so as not to disturb Billy, even though the alarm was for him too. Then she stepped out of the darkened bedroom and made her way down the old wooden staircase to the kitchen.
She spotted the writing on the wall before she even made it down the last step, her breath kicking out of her lungs. Scrawled in blood-red oversized letters read three horrific messages: f*** your family . . . that bitch is gone . . . this is what you get.
Krissy's heart pounded hard and painful against her ribs. Her first thought-bizarre and ill-fitting-was that the words looked so . . . intrusive here, on her old but pristine white walls, in the falling-apart-but-still-beautiful kitchen. Those nasty, violent words didn't belong in quaint Wakarusa, Indiana, full of good, pious people. When the town got wind of this, Krissy knew, those words would taint every member of her family for the rest of their lives.
She stood on the bottom step, shaking. Though the sun was not yet up and her mind was foggy, it was clear these words were the advent of something terrible. that bitch is gone, Krissy read again, and this time shame colored her panic. Here something was horribly, horribly wrong, and all she'd been able to think was What will the neighbors say?
Two
Margot, 2019
Margot pulled up to the curb outside her uncle Luke's house, turned off the engine, and slumped back against her seat. Through the passenger-side window, she gazed up at the squat seventies ranch-style and her body prickled with dread. The last time she'd spent the night here in Wakarusa, in the town where she grew up, was twenty years ago. She'd been eleven.
Margot's hometown was originally called Salem, but the name was changed in the 1850s to avoid confusion with the other Indiana Salem. The etymology had gotten lost to history, but conventional wisdom was that the Native American Wakarusa could be translated to "knee-deep in mud." Both the old name and the new struck Margot as uncanny in their appropriateness. One evoked the killing of innocent girls, the other insinuated just how hard it was to leave. Though to Margot, the mud seemed more like quicksand. The more you fought it, the more it pulled you under. For years she thought she'd escaped, and now here she was, back again.
But more than just the town, what was making Margot's heart pound now was what version of her uncle she was going to get tonight. The real one. Or the bad one.
She took a deep breath, then grabbed her bags from the back seat and made her way up the path. On her uncle's front landing was a bulb in a wire cage illuminating the space with a flickering yellow light. The sound of moths beating their bodies against it reminded Margot of childhood summers here-long, hot days of skinned knees and calves cut up from fields of corn. She lifted a fist and knocked.
After a moment, Margot heard the plunk of a dead bolt, then the door creaked slowly, barely, open. Her pasted-on smile faltered.
"Un...
