The Taken Ones

Summer 1980. Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out — dead silent, her memory gone.

Summer 2022. Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicide: a woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace that belonged to one of the girls who vanished all those years ago. The case of the Taken Ones seizes the nation's attention.

As Van and Harry work the connections between the crimes of the past and the present, Van has to contend with memories of her own nightmarish childhood — and with the fear that following the Taken Ones to the truth will take her somewhere she cannot come back from. The Taken Ones is the first full-length Steinbeck and Reed novel by Jess Lourey.