Restless Dark
Two years after serial killer Joseph Kincaid plunged into Georgia's Cloudkiss Canyon while pursuing amateur environmental scientist Lucy Wilson, his body still hasn't been found. A popular true-crime podcast turns the search into Killer Quest, a weeklong contest offering $20,000 to whoever finds his remains.
Lucy, now 17, joins in secret, hoping the discovery will finally let her stop looking over her shoulder. There she meets Carolina Cassels, who fears there's something genuinely evil inside her after her ex-boyfriend's mysterious death and her father's religious abuse, and Maggie Rey, a carefree college sophomore who falls in with them. Local legend says the canyon's fog shows people their truest, most feared selves, and as the contest wears on, that legend starts to feel less like folklore: contestants grow paranoid and aggressive, hallucinations spread, and Killer Quest becomes its own real-time whodunit after one competitor is found near death at the canyon's edge.
Erica Waters's YA thriller turns a true-crime fandom into a survival story about the things people bury to keep functioning.
Environmental scientist who was Joseph Kincaid's target years ago, secretly joining the contest to hunt for his remains.
Contestant convinced there's something evil inside her, shaped by her ex-boyfriend's death and her father's religious abuse.
Carefree college sophomore who joins Lucy and Carolina's group during the contest.