The Graveyard Girls is the eleventh installment in Rita Herron’s Detective Ellie Reeves series, and it delivers yet another suspenseful, fast-paced addition to the series.
Title: The Graveyard Girls
Author(s): Rita Herron
Series: Detective Ellie Reeves #11
Also in this series: The Burning Girls , Widow Lake , The Sleeping Girls , The Ice Sisters , Midnight Ridge
Published by Bookouture on August 14, 2025
Pages: 432
Genre(s): Mystery, Thriller
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Format: eBook 
Purchase: Amazon|Audible
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A shrill scream pierced the night air. She caught the fluttering bedroom curtain and held it aside. Her little sister stared over her shoulder, trembling. A figure they knew, in a dark coat and ski hat, emerged from the bushes and stared at the window. If they tried to stop him, they’d end up in the ground…
When the skeletal remains of a teenage girl are discovered buried in a deserted graveyard it’s a chilling case for Detective Ellie Reeves. Her heart catches with emotion as she examines the grave for clues and uncovers a haunting detail. One red shoe lies in the dirt, just like the one sixteen-year-old Ruth Higgins was wearing when she disappeared years earlier. Everyone in the town mourned beautiful golden girl Ruth, but her suspected killer, gravedigger Earl Bramble, escaped from police custody and hasn’t been seen since.
Ellie knows she must work fast, and then a call comes in that turns the blood in her veins to ice. Another teenage girl, a recent runaway, has been found buried with one red shoe. The evidence suggests that Earl must be back. But when Ellie goes to the old clapboard house where Earl’s daughters still live, they claim to know nothing about their father…
Ellie needs her team on side to help her solve this shocking case. But just as she begins to make headway, she discovers a connection from the past between one of her most trusted colleagues and the gravedigger’s daughters that throws everything she thought into disarray. With parents terrified, girls in danger and a cold-hearted killer stealing innocent lives, can Ellie find him, and make him pay, before it is too late?
Some secrets refuse to stay buried, no matter how many years have passed. That is exactly what Ellie Reeves and her team discover in this installment.
Years ago, sixteen-year-old Ruth Higgins vanished without a trace. The only evidence left behind was a single red shoe and a red scarf. Not long afterward, the prime suspect in her disappearance also disappeared. Years later, investigators uncover skeletal remains in a deserted graveyard and believe they have finally found Ruth. However, the investigation takes an unexpected turn when they identify the remains as those of another missing teenage girl. As they uncover more bodies, each accompanied by a red shoe and a red scarf, Ellie and her team begin to question whether the suspect who disappeared years ago committed the murders or whether the real killer has been hiding in plain sight all along.
Ellie and her team have their work cut out for them. They are digging up decades-old secrets while searching for an abusive suspect who seemingly vanished. At the same time, his daughters are keeping secrets of their own. This made it harder to separate truth from lies.
As if the investigation isn’t complicated enough, Ellie’s relationship with Cord introduces another layer of uncertainty. He has secrets that may or may not have an impact on the case. This created additional tension outside of the murder investigation.
One aspect I particularly enjoyed was the killer’s point of view. It added another layer of suspense and gave readers insight into what drove the killer to commit these horrific crimes without taking away from the mystery.
The Graveyard Girls kept me turning the pages as I tried to figure out whether the killer was the person everyone suspected or someone hiding in plain sight. Rita Herron once again delivers an engaging mystery filled with twists, buried secrets, and plenty of suspense. If you’re a fan of police procedurals with compelling characters and cold cases that refuse to stay buried, this one is definitely worth picking up.
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About Rita Herron
USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author Rita Herron fell in love with books at the ripe age of eight when she read her first Trixie Belden mystery. Although she wanted to be a writer then and actually scrawled her first novel at age twelve, she didn’t think real people grew up to be writers, so she became a kindergarten teacher instead. Ten years ago, she traded her classroom storytelling and puppets for a computer and now writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. Having sold over fifty books to date, she enjoys spinning spine-tingling romantic suspense tales filled with murder, mayhem, and spicy romance as well as sexy romantic comedies. Rita Herron currently writes romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue and she’s writing dark, gritty romantic suspense thrillers for Amazon Montlake.
