The Familiar Dark

This book by Amy Engel is indeed dark and the darkness to which it refers is the darkness within each of us. In the case of our protagonist, 30-year-old Eve Taggert, that darkness runs deep thanks to an abusive and drug dealing, mother. But Eve has kept it in check these last 12 years for the sake of her daughter, the light of her life, Junie. When Junie and her BFF, Izzy, are brutally murdered in the wretched town park of Barren Springs, Missouri. Eve no longer cares what others think of her. And she turns to the mother she determinedly turned her back on for lessons on vengeance; for when her mother wasn't dealing out physical or emotional abuse, she was fiercely protective of her two children, Eve and older brother Cal. No one ever bothered either child due to her reputation for swift and terrible retaliation. Now all Eve wants to do is find the person who murdered her daughter and do the same thing. She feels no need to work with the corrupt sheriff or the parents of the other dead girl, Zach and Jenny Logan, who come from a different social class and, therefore, different world than Eve. She is emotionally supported by her brother and the cook and waitress at the cafe where she has waited tables since she was in high school. Her brother Cal is a cop, and a fair one by all accounts, but consistently warns Eve away from her inquiries. So Eve finds out on her own, through an informal network, that Izzy was seeing an older man, Matt. Matt is a key member of a drug selling operation run by Eve's physically abusive ex-boyfriend, Jimmy Ray. Eve will even turn to him to get what she wants. But it is none of the really dangerous people she confronts who finally, ultimately betray her.
This not a happy ending book. Kirkus says it is "a bleak drama of rural America that offers grim lessons but minimal hope."  Publishers' Weekly refers to the genre as "rural noir." But it is well-written with loving descriptions of the hidden green hollers and rolling rivers of the Missouri Ozarks. The Daily Herald offers a good succinct review of the plot as well as a glowing review.