Midwest thrillers are few and far between, but every time one crops up it scratches a special itch in my heart. There is something rich and powerful at having settings from your childhood play host to something absolutely otherworldly.
Mindy Mejia is helping build the Midwest mystery genre with the third installment of her “Iowa Mysteries” series, The Whisper Place, which debuted on Sept. 16. (Read my review for Little Village here). Continuing the story of Max Summerlin and Jonah Kendrick, the series shifts into a more intimate style of thriller than the book’s predecessors. The previous books in the set came out in quick succession —To Catch a Storm was published in 2023, and A World of Hurt hit shelves in 2024.
If Mejia’s latest is your first foray in the series, or if you could use a refresher on the first two books, here’s what to know.
Spoiler alert for the first two books in Mindy Mejia’s “Iowa Mysteries” series.
The unlikely duo…
Max Summerlin and Jonah Kendrick serve as the main protagonists across the three books in the series. In To Catch a Storm, they are two of the novel’s three first-person narrators, though they are strange bedfellows. Max is an investigator for the Iowa City Police Department, and Jonah is his college roommate who also happens to be a psychic. Jonah dreams about missing people and has an empathic connection to the world around him, able to read emotions and memories from people and meaningful objects. Although Max and Jonah spent their undergraduate years solving cases using Max’s charisma and Jonah’s supernatural abilities, tensions between them escalate as Max’s “off hours” investigations with Jonah repeatedly put him in physical danger, causing a rift between them. This is further exacerbated as Jonah is increasingly obsessed with the disappearance of his niece, Celina, who he has dreamed about but cannot find. Max and Jonah reconcile in time for A World of Hurt, although the second book in the series loses Jonah as a narrator, so this reconciliation is mostly felt through Max. It also doesn’t hurt that Jonah’s psychic abilities help solve a murder and bust a multi-million-dollar drug ring.
…The unlikely crime…
Speaking of drug rings, both To Catch a Storm and its follow-up, A World of Hurt, are centered on crimes that have grown out of the opioid epidemic. The first book begins as a mystery about the disappearance and possible death of a chemistry professor, Matthew Moore. What at first appears to be a case of vengeance against an unfaithful husband turns into a much larger crime as Moore’s involvement in developing and selling millions of dollars of opioids comes to light.
Not only was Moore critical to the creation of the criminal enterprise, but he was compelled to do so by his long-time neighbor and semi-adoptive-father, Sam. Tied into the drug ring is Celina’s disappearance, as it is revealed she was killed when she was misidentified as a DEA informant. Jonah uses his psychic abilities to uncover a barn where Moore is being kept and tortured, learning that he was trying to leak information to the DEA following Celina’s death. After a final shootout in the collapsing barn results in Sam’s death, Jonah is able to recover his niece’s remains, bringing closure but not healing.
While To Catch a Storm has the kingpin revealed and the opioid trafficking disrupted, A World of Hurt revisits it as the DEA gets involved to find the drug cache left behind after the events of the first book. Matthew Moore is murdered in the hospital while recovering from his injuries in a clear bid to bury information he may have held. Max Summerlin is brought on board as the Iowa City Police Department liaison for the investigation, but it doesn’t take long for him to realize that drugs are not the target of the search. Instead, Agent Morales of the DEA is searching for $100 million believed to be left behind when Sam’s drug business broke apart.
Max’s conflicted feelings about being a police officer, already growing as a direct result of the Black Lives Matter movement, becomes even more complicated when he learns that he is being used to find money, not drugs. This comes to a head when he discovers that his own boss, Chief Larson, was helping Sam move drugs through the state of Iowa and had intended to buy Sam’s business before his death. Larson is ultimately subdued in a final shootout, after which Agent Morales gives up on his search for the money cache and Max decides to join Jonah as a private investigator.
…And the unlikely women who make the books possible
The women of the series are fascinating, both as standalone characters and in how they interact with Max and Jonah. To Catch a Storm’s third narrator is Dr. Eve Roth, an established physics professor who specializes in weather tracking and prediction. Her husband, the aforementioned Matthew Moore, goes missing after his car is set on fire during a winter storm, making her the prime suspect in his disappearance. She and Jonah become unlikely partners as they try to find Moore, with Eve gradually coming to terms that Jonah has abilities that exceed her logical understanding. Eve ends the first book not only vindicated, but with a deep connection to Jonah that grows as they shelter together during COVID-19.
A World of Hurt leaves Jonah and Eve to their bubbling and instead focuses on Max. His collaboration with the DEA leads him to be partnered with Kara, the novel’s other first-person narrator and former drug runner for Sam. Kara lives with congenital analgesia (also known as congenital insensitivity to pain), meaning that she cannot feel injuries to her body. Kara is revealed near the end of To Catch a Storm as Celina’s lover before her death, and she begins A World of Hurt identified as the true DEA informant, having leaked details to the police at Celina’s encouragement. Kara’s complex relationship with pain, and how intense her grieving becomes as a direct result of her physical insensitivity, becomes a complex investigation of how humans feel.
Notably, the final main female character in the series is one whose perspective the reader never sees. Shelly, Max’s wife, provides both tension and comfort. Sometimes she is portrayed as proof of Max’s failure, as she is repeatedly left to maintain their house and the care of their son while he faces the world. Other times, she is his biggest opposition, leading him to lie and sneak behind her back to prevent conflict. Her role within the series, and the reason the reader is not granted her perspective, is to create a theoretical ideal that Max wants to live up to. Thinking of Shelly’s wants and needs compels him to do better as a person and a professional, making her the impetus to most of his decisions. (I will provide a light The Whisper Place spoiler here: Shelly and Max are in therapy now.)
World of Hurt ends on a hopeful note as Max, Jonah, Eve and Shelly share an inspiring moment around a campfire; Kara finds a second chance at love and life, having earned her peace. The “Iowa Mysteries” series sets the tone for its third installment by creating a more intimate setting, exploring something on a smaller scale with a grander emotional core.
