Journalist Harper McClain in Revolver Road lives on Tybee Island, 17 miles from Savannah. She is in need of a new, exciting story to fill the front page of the Savannah Daily News. But here’s the dilemma: nothing newsworthy ever happens on Tybee Island. The population is small, and there’s little-to-no criminal activities. So, when the disappearance, and later on, the death of famous musician Xavier Rayne shakes everyone on the island, Harper has the opportunity to cover the front page. She starts the investigation immediately upon hearing Xavier was reported missing.
Harper meets Xavier’s bandmates and girlfriend, who were all surprisingly ready to reveal information about him to the reporter. Their last memory of Xavier is him walking off into the stormy night with his guitar. They recovered the guitar, but no sign of Xavier. Sometime later, the singer washes up on shore, dead. The immediate theory is that he walked into the water that stormy night and drowned, but that gets ruled out when two bulletholes are found in his back. From missing to found dead to being shot, Xavier’s case shakes up Tybee Island. How far will Harper go for the sake of a tragic, yet exciting story?
Harper is familiar with mysteries, since she’s been dealing with the mystery of her mother’s murder since author Christi Daugherty’s first two books, Echo Killing and A Beautiful Corpse. At the end of A Beautiful Corpse, someone who could be her mother’s killer is watching Harper’s every move. Even upon moving out of town and having yet to hear from the killer, she’s still haunted by the stranger’s threats. Other than her good friend, Miles, Harper is alone. Her father abandoned her, her mother was murdered, and she has no siblings.
The unsolved murder of her mother connects to the murder of Xavier Rayne, somehow. Caught up in conversations with Xavier’s friends, Harper often forgets that she’s there to get a story on the front page. She develops a strong relationship with them; so strong, it’s disturbing to believe that one or two, or all three of them, would commit such a horrendous crime. But the tension and hostility between the three of them make Harper suspicious. On top of that, the phone calls and threats from her mystery man return.
Revolver Road is the third book in Christi Daugherty’s Harper McClain’s series, but it can also be read as a standalone. Harper’s motivation of discovering what happened to Xavier Rayne sets the quick pace of the novel. Daughtery has once again created a thrilling, eerie, page-turner to continue her series.
