Bad Wolf, the second novel by Germany mystery writer Nele Neuhaus to be translated and published in the United States (after 2013's Snow White Must Die), starts with the body of a teenage girl washing ashore from a river outside Frankfurt. An autopsy reveals the girl suffered unspeakable abuse while she was alive. Soon after, a television host is attacked, sustaining similarly horrific injuries; she survives, if barely, but has temporary memory loss concerning the attack. Could the big mysterious exposé she was working on have triggered it? And how is she connected to the dead girl?
Police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein zero in on a suspect, a convicted pedophile now living in a trailer park, but the man proves elusive. Nothing is as it seems, and the investigation uncovers secrets almost too awful for even experienced crime inspectors to stomach.
Bad Wolf contains many characters and frequent point-of-view switches. Certain aspects of the plot seem too coincidental, and the identities of some of the bad guys are obvious. (Kirchhoff even chastises herself at the end of not recognizing something conspicuous.) Neuhaus does pack some surprises, however, as she maintains a steady pace and eventually weaves the stories together into one heartrending tapestry. This is no fairy tale, but it is a satisfying thriller. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, crime-fiction editor, The Edit Ninja.