Book Review: The Dead Won’t Tell

The Dead Won’t Tell by S.K. Waters is a cold case mystery novel that was hard to put down.

The novel follow Abbie Adams, a historian turned journalist in Hunt’s Landing, Alabama. In the novel, small town’s claim to fame was in 1969 as the University there played a big role in the moon landing. Abbie is given the opportunity to write an article at the newspaper she works at, the first in a series about the history of Hunt’s Landing. The article she’s tasked with is about the unsolved murder of a young woman the night the astronaut’s returned from the moon in 1969.

Abbie starts researching and interviewing people in town who were around that night and still alive today. The night of the murder, the whole town was celebrating and parties were everywhere. At some point that night, Rosalie DuFrayne, a young college student was murdered and left by the river. Little was done to investigate the murder and the news article about her death was cursory at best. Was it because there was a lot going on in the news at the time with the astronauts returning and Vietnam? Or did Rosalie being black have anything to do with it? In the old notes Abbie is given from the police investigation and the original reporter back then, she finds a note asking the reporter to let the story go.

Completely invested in trying to find out the truth about what happened that night and get justice for Rosalie, Abbie is dedicated to the story. Her old college friend is in town doing his own research for his documentary so he and Abbie’s other friends in town help her investigate. She especially gets help from her older friends with their knowledge of the town’s history from before she was born. However, the more Abbie uncovers about that night the more people get hurt. Are these incidents all coincidences or is someone trying to stop Abbie from learning the truth?

I really liked the book. I was so interested in the case and even though I had some guesses about what happened or who the killer was, new information kept popping up that made me not really know what the truth would end up being. I kept reading too because I wanted to see if somehow Joss’s (Abbie’s college friend) research would somehow connect with Abbie’s.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book and all the characters!