Algosensey|Tamron Hall's new book is a compelling thriller, but leaves us wanting more

Jordan just wants some answers.

Tamron Hall's "Watch Where They Hide" (William Morrow,Algosensey 246 pp, ★★½ out of four), out now, is a sequel to her 2021 mystery/thriller novel "As The Wicked Watch."

Both books follow Jordan Manning, a Chicago TV reporter who works the crime beat. In this installment, it’s 2009, and two years have passed since the events in the previous book. If you haven’t read that first novel yet, no worries, it's not required reading.

Jordan is investigating what happened to Marla Hancock, a missing mother of two from Indianapolis who may have traveled into Chicago. The police don’t seem to be particularly concerned about her disappearance, nor do her husband or best friend. But Marla’s sister, Shelly, is worried and reaches out to Jordan after seeing her on TV reporting on a domestic case.

As Jordan looks into Marla’s relationships and the circumstances surrounding the last moments anyone saw her, she becomes convinced something bad occurred. She has questions, and she wants the police to put more effort into the search, or even to just admit the mom is truly missing. The mystery deepens, taking sudden turns when confusing chat room messages and surveillance videos surface. What really happened to Marla?

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The stories Jordan pursues have a ripped-from-the-headlines feel. Hall weaves in themes of race, class and gender bias as Jordan navigates her career ambitions and just living life as a young Black woman.

Hall, a longtime broadcast journalist and talk show host, is no stranger to television or investigative journalism and brings a rawness to Jordan Manning and a realness to the newsroom and news coverage in her novels.

Jordan is brilliant at her job, but also something of a vigilante.

Where no real journalist, would dare to do what Jordan Manning does, Hall gives her main character no such ethical boundaries. Jordan often goes rogue on the cases she covers, looking into leads and pursuing suspects — more police investigator than investigative journalist.

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Sometimes this works: Jordan is a fascinating protagonist, she’s bold, smart, stylish and unapologetically Black. She cares about her community and her work, and she wants to see justice done.

But sometimes it doesn’t. The plot is derailed at times by too much explanation for things that’s don’t matter and too little on the ones that do, muddying up understanding Jordan’s motivations.

And sudden narration changes from Jordan’s first person to a third-person Shelly, but only for a few chapters across the book, is jarring and perhaps unnecessary.

There are a great deal of characters between this book and the previous one, often written about in the sort of painstaking detail that only a legacy journalist can provide, but the most interesting people in Jordan’s life — her news editor, her best friend, her police detective friend who saves her numerous times, her steadfast cameraman — are the ones who may appear on the page, but don’t get as much context or time to shine.

The mysteries are fun, sure, but I’m left wishing we could spend more time unraveling Jordan, learning why she feels called to her craft in this way, why the people who trust her or love her, do so. It's just like a journalist to be right in front of us, telling us about someone else's journey but not much of her own.

When the books focus like a sharpened lens on Jordan, those are the best parts. She’s the one we came to watch.