The Sorority Murder: A Novel (Regan Merritt Series, 1)

The Sorority Murder is # 1 in a series following the character Regan Merritt, she used to be a U.S. Marshall until tragedy forced her to change everything about her life starting with the perspective of her job. She has come back to her hometown of Flagstaff to let her mind settle and figure out her next steps. Due to the prodding of a family friend, she comes into contact with a college student named Lucas. He has started a project about a 3-year-old cold case which involves a sorority girl found dead named Candace after she’d been missing for a week. Lucas wants answers to what happened to her and where she was during that week. Lucas puts this idea together into a podcast called The Sorority Murder. My first thought when reading this was, I’ve read this before. It felt too similar to the Rachel Krall series by Megan Goldin just different characters and other minor differences. People are irritated by the podcast which leads to a whole mess of trouble. Regan has to step into protector mode despite her misgivings and help Lucas see this thing through. As her dad points out during a conversation: “…I’m intrigued. He asks some good questions. Maybe he’ll find the answers. Maybe you can help. … I know you don’t like unsolved murders any more than I do” (14%). We find out later that this is alluding to something in Regan’s past. As the story continues pieces fall together, but there is one thing missing. Regan can’t figure out why everything isn’t clicking clearly for her. Has she really lost her touch? I enjoyed that this book allowed me to get immersed in the case while seeing Regan in action. I always find that getting to know a character through the story itself means more to me than being given just her background. Turns out the reason characters were killed was pretty ridiculous. The killer wanted something they could never have. Although the case ended up being solved, the ending was still sad and bittersweet. The ending left me feeling melancholy because it was senseless. All of it. None of it needed to happen. As a first in the series, Sorority Murder was a great start and had me wanting to know more about Regan and hoping for the next book to be ready soon. I would definitely recommend this book to all fiction readers within the upper adult range. I don’t think teens would like it as much based on the set up and point of view. I can’t wait to review book # 2.