The Cold Way Home by Julia Keller

Cold Way Home is part of the Bell Elkins series set in Acker's Gap, WV, an area that is suffering greatly from the opioid epidemic and a generally poor economy. Bell lost her job as a prosecutor and is now working as a private investigator with friends Jake and Nick.They get hired to find a missing teenager. During the course of that investigation, they come upon a dead body in the ruins of an old mental hospital in the woods. And Bell wonders if that death might not be related to another death years ago of a woman who worked at the the mental hospital--and, it turns out, who was the grandmother of the dead woman whose body was just discovered.

It's a compelling story but kind of depressing. Everyone in the town seems sad and hopeless. And when we learn the solution to the murder mystery, things look even darker. Keller is a talented writer so you do get a real sense of the despair pervading the town. But it's not a particularly uplifting read during these trying times. I have to go find some good chick lit while hunkering down from the corona virus.