Berkley
Published November 11, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Leanne Everhart has returned to her hometown of Madrone, Texas, a small town in a rugged landscape near the Big Bend. While it’s a mecca to outdoorsy tourists, it has its dark side. Sex workers ply their trade at a nearby truck stop, and immigrants making the trek north often perish in the high desert. When a woman’s body is found near the highway, assaulted and bludgeoned, Leanne’s first task is to figure out who it is. She also has to persuade her chief the murder should be a priority. The police force is currently occupied with the return of Sean Moriarty, released from prison after his conviction in a highly publicized murder of a teenage girl was thrown out. Leanne’s beloved, now-deceased father was police chief when Hannah Rawls was murdered and Sean found guilty. Her father’s reputation has been tarnished, though many townsfolk still believe Sean was guilty. Leanne has to fight for the chance to investigate the death of a woman without an identity in the face of a more notorious murder. Before long she discovers it’s not the first killing of an unnamed woman along the same highway, but it’s hard for her to make a case to her superiors.
Prolific author Griffin uses some familiar materials in this story: a detective reluctantly comes home and uncovers secrets; a single murder investigation leads to a series of crimes; the deaths of marginalized women are overlooked by a system that doesn’t take their lives seriously. Here, these elements are handled capably, with a prickly, determined protagonist whose dysfunctional family provides depth as she pursues justice. While Leanne battles her boss, she finds an ally in Izzy, a forensic photographer who likewise hoped to leave Madrone behind her but has returned and taken a job with the police because the art photography she really cares about doesn’t pay the bills. Between them, and with the help of an anthropologist, a helpful county sheriff’s detective, and an FBI profiler, they begin to piece together a case, a task that grows more urgent as the chief gives Leanne just two more days to close the case.
While it doesn’t necessarily blaze new trails, Innocence Road could be the first in a satisfying series, with a detective who is as rugged and thorny as the West Texas landscape that’s vividly described, devil’s head cactus, ocotillo, catclaw and all .