Deep in the heart of Bible Belt Arkansas lies the town of Repentance. This is a ‘God fearing’ place where in 1995 two girls disappear and history seems to be repeating itself in 2019. Central to the story is Mary Grace Dodds, now Sheriff of Repentance and who was 11 when her sixth grade companions went missing. This is a very dark story full of a sense of foreboding, of chills, of the devil riding back into town and all hell let lose. It has all the ingredients of a good psychological thriller. The central protagonist is Mary Grace, who partly narrates, who is riddled with guilt over past events, she’s struggling internally with the conflict between good and evil yet strives in adulthood to uphold the law. At times her story is so sad as she feels she does not belong, she’s full of self recrimination but is her guilt real or imaginary? The other essential ingredients are also there with an atmosphere of suspense and tension which it’s got in abundance. There’s a real edginess in the storytelling, an aura of something building to a crescendo with the elements being used cleverly and biblically to add to the tension and panic. The spotlight on this town is horribly fascinating too. For a place that professes to godliness it sure is a boiling cauldron of bigotry, secrets, lies and bare faced hypocrisy as we have racism, homophobia and bullying. It’s medieval in its attitude towards sin with rumourmongering adding to the narrow minded prejudice so there should be a whole truckload of Repentance. As the story reaches its very dramatic end and the truth spills out it’s very shocking and begs so many unanswerable questions of whether evil and sin is passed on through generations. So, why four stars and not five? There are so many characters to get your head around, there is so much guilt and angst it loses some impact after a while and it’s convoluted in places. Overall though, this is an astonishingly good debut which I have no hesitation recommending to fans of this genre. I look forward to reading what the author comes up with next.