The Rivers Run Dry by Sibella Giorello

Raleigh Harmon has been relocated to Seattle because of a conflict. Her mother Nadine has moved with her across the country. Raleigh's eccentric aunt has moved in with them in order to keep Raleigh's FBI missions a secret from Nadine. Raleigh must now work with Jack Stefanson, an agent she doesn't like, on a case of a missing college student from a mountain trail. This college student has had a past of gambling in Las Vegas, possibly connecting her to an abuse case Jack is currently working on. As Raleigh investigates the casinos of Las Vegas and the streets of Seattle, she finds that sources for the whereabouts of the missing girl are dry, forcing her to take extreme measures.

With her rising popularity, Sibella Giorello has lost a few of the original qualities that came from The Stones Cry Out, but she did not lose all of them. She uses several suspense cliches in The Rivers Run Dry, but she maintains her streak of Elite books nonetheless.

In sequels and as series progress, characters tend to lose whatever imperfection and personality they started out with if they had any. This is not the case with the Raleigh Harmon series. Raleigh continues to be the same, imperfect character with a personality that she was in The Stones Cry Out. Her mother, the only other returning character, also remains the same. This is realistic because people do not automatically perfect with the passing of time. Jack Stefanson is not the best character he could have been and contributes to this book's fall 5 stars. There are also several other good characters in this novel that flavor it.

Sibella continues to refrain from romance, even though one with Jack is readily available. But it only makes sense that two people who don't like each other from the beginning will probably not like each other in the end (at least in the real world).

The case is flavored with dead ends, false suspects, and false villains, as all cases should be. And there is no convenient connection between Raleigh's kidnapping case and Jack's abuse case, thank God.

So what's wrong with the book? First of all, Jack's lack of personality, but also a typical showdown. Sibella also fixes several minor things at the end. Sibella remains to be one of the best authors on the market save for these reasons. I expect more great things out of her in the future.

4 stars