Format: Paperback, 398 pages
Release Date: August 1, 2024
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Source: Amazon First Read
Genre: Mystery
Someone’s found the skeleton in the closet, and it’s not the only one. Wall Street Journal bestselling author Debra Webb presents an emotional new mystery.
Crime analyst and newly disgraced deputy police chief Vera Boyett doesn’t visit home often, and she certainly doesn’t venture back into the cave on her family land. But when the remains of her long-missing stepmother are discovered, Vera will have to face a past that threatens all she is.
She and her sister Eve had a fairy-tale childhood: good until it was tragic, with a stepmother they never found a bond with. At least they had each other, a baby half-sister, and a mutual devotion that would have them do the unthinkable.
It’s a summer in small-town Tennessee, so thick with humidity it could drown you and so rife with secrets it could smother you. And deep beneath the surface, there are more bodies than you’d think…
Debra Webb's Deeper Than the Dead is the first installment in the author's Vera Boyett series. 39-year-old Vera Boyett is Deputy Chief of a specialized unit in the Memphis Police Department. She spent 15 years on the job. But it appears now that her career is falling apart, spiraling out of control, as well as her personal life. The team she helped create is likely to be abolished after everyone on the team has been suspended thanks to two of her officers being involved in a horrific shooting that claimed two lives.
Instead of waiting for the investigation to clear her actions, Vera decides to fall on her own sword and walks away from the department. Curiously, about this same time, her half-sister Luna, who lives in Fayetteville, Tennessee, calls to tell Vee that their mother (stepmother) Sheree has been found and she wasn't taken. She's dead. Her body was found in a cave where Vee and her sister Eve played as kids. Sheree went missing 22 years ago. Vera and her sister Eve have a secret about that event.
To add to the complications, Vera's lost love of her youth is now the sheriff in town. Sheriff Gray Benton disappeared 20 years ago and decided to join the military. Now, he's back after replacing the former Sheriff who was the chief investigator into Sheree's disappearance. He knows that Eve and Vee are keeping secrets, and so is Vernon Boyett. But then further remains are discovered in the same cave, both predating and postdating Sheree's disappearance, Vee begins to get actively involved in the investigation even though she might be a prime suspect in Sheree's death.
Who has been using the cave as a body disposal site? Vee has another problem. What really happened to Sheree? Did she really try to drown her own baby, Luna, or did Eve have something to do with her death? To make matters even more mysterious, Vee's father Vernon has dementia and he is not a good witness to what really happened. The only person who may know the truth is Eve who seemingly enjoys talking to the dead. Eve, who is a mortician, seemingly has feelings about people who died, and she is the only witness to the day when things changed the family forever.
Although the pacing for the first half of the book was lacking, it still was interesting enough to keep reading. The final parts of this book were, of course, where things got really interesting. Vee, who is a crime analyst, not only has to deal with the fact that most of the people she knows and grew up with are suspects but how does she tell Bent what happened 22 years ago? If she tells him, will he ever trust her again? The one part that was “unsolved” made me question the ending. Unless the “unsolved” part is set up for a second story/future Vera Boyett novel. Personally, it made me feel like the ending was rushed as if something was missing.
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