Family pulls stronger than anything else, or at least, that’s how it is for Frankie Barrera, who has spent her life protecting her younger sister, Izzy. Due to their infirm parents, she has spent a great deal of time raising her sister. Thrust into a position of responsibility over her sibling, Frankie finds herself willing to do just about anything for Izzy.
In Heather Chavez’s second novel, Blood Will Tell, that anything includes lying, trespassing, and putting herself in constant danger. But it is her greatest act of devotion— covering up for Izzy after she hits someone with a car—that comes back to bite them both five years later.
Izzy is an addict who lies and steals and hangs out with less-than-savory people. The night of her accident, Frankie picks up Izzy from the scene, but finds only a dead deer. More concerned with getting her heavily intoxicated sister to the hospital, Frankie lets herself believe it was just a deer—but the girl Izzy says she hit, Rachel, hasn’t been seen since. Frankie’s fears are confirmed the morning after the crash when she finds human hair and blood on the front of her car. She carefully washes it away, along with memories of that fateful night.
The sisters have tried to get on with their lives, but neither has ever truly healed. When Rachel’s sister Marina goes missing five years after Rachel’s disappearance, their old crime resurfaces to haunt them. It comes out that Izzy borrowed Frankie’s truck without permission the night of this new disappearance, and that Marina’s mother saw Marina get into a vehicle that looked very much like it. Frankie even finds herself stopped at a gas station by police when her license plate matches the one from Marina’s missing person’s report.
It seems it’s time for Frankie to question everything she thinks she knows about her sister, no matter how much Izzy pushes them apart. But can Izzy really be a killer? And is she more clever than Frankie has ever given her credit for?
The narrative is split between Frankie trying to solve the five-year-old case before Izzy goes down for it, and her reminisces of how she and Izzy got to where they are in the first place. That night so long ago is a part of it, but the story makes it clear that reckless behavior has long been a part of who Izzy is. When the accident happened, she and five other teenagers were in the middle of the woods. They were drunk and careless, and no one really has a clear memory of what happened that night. Each tells a slightly different story, and each is protecting someone else in the group.
Given the long list of Izzy’s past negative behavior, and that she almost relapses over the course of the narrative, it’s hard to blame Frankie for fretting. Izzy is on the edge of falling, even as she takes her final faltering steps toward adulthood. Frankie still has a bone-deep desire to protect Izzy, and it’s very possible that it’s keeping her blind to what her sister is capable of.
Fast-paced and nail-biting, Blood Will Tell will keep readers whipping through the pages. As there aren’t really very many characters, you’ll probably guess who did it by the end, but thanks to Chavez’s clear prose, strong characterization of Frankie, and fine plotting, readers really shouldn’t mind. This is only Chavez’s second published work, but it’s already as crisp as a late series installment.
