Book review: What She Saw by Mary Burton

What She Saw by Mary Burton is an enjoyable read that unfolds in two timelines. We’re taken back 30+years ago to the lead-up to a small-town music festival and the days (weeks) following, and in the present we’re with writer Sloane as she unpicks the past. We learn fairly quickly that she’s got a personal interest in the case–featuring a killer dubbed the Mountain Music Festival Killer–so perhaps more dogged in her pursuit than she might otherwise be trying to learn the truth.

About this book

Cold case reporter Sloane Grayson has come to a small mountain town in Virginia to solve a mystery.

Thirty years ago, her mother was one of four women who vanished during a music festival. The event’s promoter was eventually convicted of their murders, and Sheriff CJ Taggart closed the case. But for Sloane, it’s still open. Because the bodies were never found.

With Taggart now long dead, Sloane must make do with questioning the victims’ families and the few remaining witnesses once again. If they’re still willing to dredge up memories of a crime that made their town notorious. As for the incarcerated killer, he has always maintained his innocence. Sloane isn’t entirely convinced he’s lying.

Somewhere nearby, unmarked graves conceal the bones and secrets of the dead. Sloane will do anything to find them and unearth the truth, even if that means playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with someone determined to stop her…

My thoughts

I liked the way Burton paces this, the slow reveals of the victims (the ‘Festival Four’) as well as Taggart’s investigation back in 1994 and Sloane’s in the present. There are a few characters introduced so we’re offered red herrings in the form of violent exes, town leaders with vested interests in the success of the music festival and downplaying of resultant violence, as well as some locals, still living in Dawson. Sadly (bittersweetly perhaps?) Burton has readers spend some time with some of the victims in the lead up to the festival, who we just start to get to know before their deaths–or at least their disappearances.

Helping Sloane on the case (and making a worthy love interest) is a former cop who’d taken an interest in the case. Sloane’s likeable though worries about her ‘dark’ past and family heritage. She’s also wanting closure for the families of the victims who never got to know where their loved ones are buried. And of course there’s the laconic Rafe Colton convicted the the murders of the four young women, despite the lack of bodies. Sloane becomes increasingly suspicious of his refusal to share the location of their bodies, suspecting he wasn’t alone and his helper was still out in the world, living their best life, over thirty years later.

I enjoyed this, racing through it in a couple of nights. Burton does offers us a few twists and of course a layer of suspense as Sloane uncovers long-buried secrets.

What She Saw by Mary Burton was published by Montlake publishing.