Mabel owns the family restaurant in a small town. She's cute, funny, and overwhelmingly kind. Like really, she has no bad thoughts in her head. So when she finds out that it's her information that's going to get an innocent man convicted of a horrible murder, she steps up to solve the crime herself. Mabel stands up to drug dealers, murderers, and actual Nazis, and brings pies to all of her witnesses. This is the most danger-filled cozy mystery I've ever read. I'm interested to find out what comes next for Mabel.

Heart of a Runaway by Trevor Wiltzen

Mabel is a single mother in Blue River, Washington who is struggling to raise her two small boys and her teenaged niece. She owns and runs a small cafe and motel in town. She becomes concerned, when a teenaged girl, Karen is found at the local sawmill murdered and raped. Mabel is concerned because she told the local Sheriff, Dan, that she saw Karen and another young man named Winston arguing, shortly before Karen was found dead. Sheriff Dan goes out and arrests Winston on the charge of murder, without doing any investigating. Mabel is concerned that Winston is not being treated properly because he is black.

Mabel fears that she is the only person who truly cares that Winston gets a fair trial. Especially when the local drug lord sends his white supremacist buddies over to try and lynch poor Winston. She finds herself buttering up Sheriff Dan, who comes in regularly to eat dinner so that she can have a look at the evidence.

The drug lord is unhappy that she's nosing around and makes several threats on Mabel's life and her children's lives. That doesn't stop Mabel. She visits Winston in the county jail, taking his statement. She goes to his arraignment and ends up speaking with Winston's public defender and convinces him that she doesn't think Winston killed anyone.

It comes down to Mabel's sleuthing skills to find out the truth. She meets Karen's parents and promises them that she will get to the bottom of the case of who murdered their daughter.

It's an interesting book, held my attention, and had a good conclusion at the end.

Many thanks for the complimentary copy from IBPA and NetGalley, I was under no obligation to post a review

This novel is about Mabel Davison, Mable is the owner of a diner in a small town that is run by a drug lord. She sees a lot of people come in and out of her diner but one night a young girl and boy come in and starts arguing. The teen girl is later found murdered and her black boyfriend is the suspect in the crime. When Mabel hears the news about the couple she isn't convinced that the killer is the young boy. She is determined to find out the truth and she starts asking questions a lot of people don't want to answers too. This puts her in danger. Will Mabel find the killer? Is the killer really the boyfriend? Will there be more killing?

My review
This novel was so good, it was so well written and it was so much fun to read. The mystery just made me wanting more and more I had to keep reading to find out. It was so interesting how everything connected. The author was so great with all the details. Mabel is one of my favourite characters of my 2021 reads. She is a mama bear !. I can relate to her so much. When a mom knows something isn't right she sticks to her guns and gets the right answer. She is badass and so gutsy!! I love her. I can't wait to read more. I really enjoyed it.

I would like to say thank you to NetGalley and Trevor Wiltzen for giving me the chance to read and review this awesome novel.

When a young woman is found murdered, Mabel Davison is touched by her death. She had met the girl the day before at her dinner and knew she needed help. Her black boyfriend, Winston is taken into custody and charged with the crime. Yet, Mabel doesn’t believe Winston did it. She knows someone else is the responsible party and she will do anything to prove it.

Larson, the town's drug lord, and his skinhead's cronies are terrorizing the town and when Winston was taken into custody, his men have tried to kill him. Mabel helps the Sheriff protect Winston but now Larson knows her name and is paying attention. Mabel is tired of Larson getting away with everything while providing drugs to the town. Someone has to stop him.

In order to help Winton prove his innocence, Mabel begins her own investigation to find the murderer but Larson doesn’t want her asking certain questions. Can she help Winton without putting her family and herself in danger?

I like Mabel. She was straightforward. She cared about her family and her town. She was always trying to help others and she didn’t hesitate to help Winston despite attracting Larson's interest.

Larson's character was easy to hate. He was pure evil and I was worried he was going to hurt her. I’m sure Mabel has not seen the last of him.

Cliffhanger: No

3/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by IBPA via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Heart of a Runaway Girl by Trevor Wiltzen S tep back in time to the 1980s to a completely unexpected heroine who stands up to a local drug lord to prove a young man's innocence. Mabel is the quintessential small town single mom, small business owner, waitress turned P.I. An entertaining and engaging read.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

I’m usually a very honest person and I had to DNF this book.
I’ve read around 15 chapters or so and even though it was full of jokes and the main character Mabel was easy to like, I wasn’t able to get alone with this book.
Moreover, I have started it almost a week ago and I did not miss it when I was putting it back, I was reading other books as if I have forgotten that I have started "Heart of a Runway Girl".

Nonetheless, I must say that the style which the author is using is definitely something I haven’t seen before. It’s easy and you can read it quickly.
But it’s just not a book for me.

I do hope that you will have more fun with it than I did.

This one is not for me. I managed to get a third of the way through and it just didn't get any better. It is presented as a mystery thriller but in my opinion it definitely is not and I think it should be rated for a younger audience. The writing didn't flow realistically and I didn't like Mabel. She was a little too nosey for my taste. This was just not what I expected.

Thanks to Net Galley for allowing me to read this arc for my honest opinion.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for an ARC of this book. I always give an unbiased and honest reviews of books I have read.

I have loved three women in my life. First was my high school girlfriend in the 1950s. Second is my wife to whom I have been happily married since 1967. The third is MABEL DAVISON! Who is Mabel you ask? She is the 40-something year old heroine of a new mystery series by new author TREVOR WILTZEN of Edmonton, Alberta in Canada.

The series begins with HEART OF A RUNAWAY GIRL that takes place September to November in 1986 in the town of Blue River in the state of Washington (on the north Pacific coast of the United States for non-American readers).

Mabel owns, and acts as a waitress/housekeeper at times, a diner and a motel in Blue River. The town is located about 90 minutes from Tacoma in the foothills. It is a town controlled by Karl Larson, a ruthless drug dealer and overall really bad guy. You do not want to upset his business dealings, or him personally. Mabel does both. The town is also a hotbed of White Supremacy and racial tensions are palpable.

One night a young couple are sitting in Mabel’s diner having dinner. One is a 17 or 18-year-old white girl. The other is a young African-American male who is slightly older. Mabel believes that they are in love but are having a disagreement of some sort. The next day Sheriff Dan comes to the diner and tells Mabel that the girl has been found brutally murdered in the local wood mill. The young man has been arrested and charged with the crime. Mabel cannot believe that the young man, Winston Washington killed and raped Karen Thompson, the young woman. Dan tells her that the State Police are handling the case but that Larson has some influence over the “Staties”. She decides to do her own investigating.

On Mabel’s team are her two preteen age sons and her orphaned 17-year-old niece. Mabel’s husband Bill is not living with his family but makes a cameo appearance just when Mabel needs some support. Lavi (“Lion”) Arronson is Winston’s jaded Public Defender lawyer under whom Mabel lights a fire. Several town folk also assist her.
In opposition to Mabel are Larson and his number two in command Frank Hudgens. Frank has two sons who are “friends” of Mabel’s ten-year-old son Hector. They are trying to lead him into a criminal career with themselves.

Winston denies his guilt to Sheriff Dan, his lawyer, the “Staties” and most importantly, to Mabel. He claims to have seen Karen get into a black pickup truck at the diner after their dinner on the night she was killed. Using her people skills and her town friends, Mabel discovers five or six possible actual killers. She turns over her evidence to Lavi. He advises Mabel to get a Private Investigators license so that her material can become admissible evidence. It also enables Lavi to hire her at $300 per week. Larson and Hudgens threaten Mabel’s life.

Welcome to my world of terrific mystery writers TREVOR WILTZEN. If you like mysteries, this book is for you. Mabel is a terrific character as are her many friends, her family and her formidable antagonists. I await the sequel with great anticipation. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

GO! BUY! READ!

Synopsis:
Mabel owns a diner/motel and manages them both. She is a single mother to two kids and her teenage niece. A murder of a young teenage girl in the small town of Blue River leads Mabel to investigate. A young man of colour, Winston is accused and arrested for the murder with next to no evidence. The murder and reaction by the community further uncovers the corruption of Blue River that Mabel has been disgusted by for years.
For someone who constantly claims she has no time, Mabel spends a lot of hers getting in other people's business and baking apology pies for them.

My Thoughts:
This story is marketed as an adult mystery/thriller which I think is a bit of a stretch. Potentially a YA... Investigative novel maybe?

Writing: The plot was sound and the story flowed logically. Grammatically, I only picked up on one type error (around pg. 495). I didn't find any holes in the plot per se. Though the story was quite cliche in parts. It feels as if the author tried to address some big themes but fell short. I was most irked by the "white saviour" theme we found within Mabel. (I will get more to her character further down). The story also covers family and family dysfunction, police and police corruption and community. The author sets a solid world and I appreciated the nostalgic feel of the diner and the nuances of the 1980's in the small town.

In terms of flow I felt the story dragging in the middle. I had to really focus on working through the book and then the ending came all to quickly and felt very rushed.

Characters: Mabel was a stereotypical, middle aged busy body. I was frustrated by her by about two thirds in and found myself shaking my head and rolling my eyes at her. Her actions defied logic, I couldn't rationally agree with a lot of what she did or how she did it and her dialogue was at times very melodramatic.

If I were to offer advice to Mabel it would be this: If you didn't jump to conclusions constantly and accuse people of things they didn't do/ perform police work you have no right to be doing, you would not need to make nearly as many apology pies. You state you have no time and feel run off your feet- this is the solution I offer to you.

Although addressing issues such as racism is commended, the story line and Mabel's part in it came across as very shallow and gave me big white privilege vibes. In 2020 the idea that any white person is free of being racist just doesn't sit right. Mabel points out how key members of her community are racists and therefore bad people and she, in contrast cannot be racist at all. For more exploration on this idea I would suggest reading something like White Fragility or Caste.

Through the story Winston is painted as a stereotypical, young, black kid who has fallen in with the drug dealing crowd and has no other option but to deal with his arrest. This leads to a portrayal of him feeling hopeless and his own acknowledgement that he has minimal chance of getting free because of the colour of his skin. Mabel is then painted as his saving grace- the only person who cares about him or feels he is innocent.. However, Winston's family are then present at the end of the book but had not been referred to for the entirety of the story? It just seemed off to me. I also found the whole premise of the book- that the entire state's legal and police system were an absolute failure and relied solely on Mabel to solve a crime- to be difficult to believe- even in the 80's.

Summary: I will say that this book was structured well and was polished from an editing point of view. It gave me a 'Murder, she wrote" feel and might interest people who are fans.

As a child of the ‘80s, I loved the whole vibe of the setting and the cultural references. I found Mabel a really engaging protagonist who had a good balance of toughness and emotion. Add on to that a mystery which is a bit more than it seems, offering social comment on the types of prejudice and inequality we still see today, and you have a book which will appeal to many readers. Be prepared for a range of emotions with this one - anger, sorrow and even joy. A terrific debut.

Heart of a Runaway Girl by Trevor Wiltzen

There is so much to like about the main character in this story. Mabel is a hard working business woman, having run the family diner and motel, from a young age. Her business employs men and women, full time and part time, in a small town that is falling to pieces under rule of drug lord, white supremacist, Larson. This man owns almost the entire town other than a few places like Mabel's diner/motel and the strip joint. The single cop in town has to ignore Larson and his minions because otherwise he's dead meat. Several of the state police are also under Larson's rule. The town is so small that Mabel's eight and ten year old sons have no friends their age other than the sons of Larson's best "salesman". This place may be Mabel's lifelong home but it's a very dangerous place to be. 

When a sixteen year old runaway, who was last seen fighting with a young black man, is raped and killed, the black man is pinned with her murder. But, according to Mabel, she is able to read a person's soul and know them and she lives life following her gut feelings. So Mabel is going to fight for this young black man because she "knows" he didn't kill the girl. Instead, she is going after the man or men who raped and killed this girl. And that is where I have issues with Mabel. She is in a town with no law, where she knows that a young girl has been raped and murdered, a town run by skinheads and drug dealers. I think it's mighty fine of her to tackle this head on IF it is just her life that she was putting on the line. But Mabel has two young sons and a teenage niece that she is raising and she is putting them right in the crosshairs of men who think nothing of raping, torturing and killing people, even young people. 

Mabel won't let her sons be around their dad because of his heavy handed ways. But she's bringing all of this violence to her doorstep without first putting her children somewhere safe. This could be a life lesson that her sons may not be alive to learn. Her niece is the very age of the young girls that Larson and his men prey on. I'm getting very protective about fictional kids, the older I get, but I know bad things can happen to them. Still, those things shouldn't happen to them because their smart, honest, heart of gold mom decides to go after the evil in town, without doing anything to safeguard her children from these brutal men. Heck, the kids are better off with their "bad parent" dad than being sitting ducks for the bad guys in this town. 

So, I'll give this story a 3.5, raised to 4 stars, in the hopes that Mabel uses better judgement in the next book. We know she already has her next case for her fledgling private investigator business but she needs to rethink her approach to life or she and/or her kids are going to end up dead. Her current approach is not good parenting, no matter what life lessons you want to impart to your children or how much you want to make the world a better place. 

Thank you to Trevor Wiltzen/Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles and NetGalley for this ARC.

Set in the 1980s, Heart of a Runaway Girl by debut author Trevor Wiltzen is an absolute gem of a novel.

When the small town of Blue River is rocked by the brutal rape and murder of a young 18-year old girl and her black boyfriend is imprisoned for the crime, an unlikely savior rises, in the form of Mabel -  waitress, motel owner and single mother - to fight back against the corruption that permeates the community.

I loved the character of Mabel who was soft-hearted and compassionate to those around her, but fought back with the ferociousness of a Mama Bear when her loved ones were threatened. The supporting characters of Sheriff Dan, Kerry, Consuela and others were also well-written. Though the concept of a waitress-turned-P.I was quite far-fetched, the author managed to keep it believable without going overboard. I also admired the delicate manner in which topics such as racism, drug abuse and domestic abuse were addressed without sounding too preachy.

Overall, I found this to be a quick and engaging read. I am quite excited to know that there is a second book featuring Mabel and can't wait to read it.

A big thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Location:- Mabel Davis’ diner in Blue River, a ‘wilderness place’ off the beaten track in Washington State.
Timescale:- Autumn 1986.
Forty something Mabel witnesses a tense conversation in her diner between a young white girl and a young black man who she recognises as Winston Washington. The following day the girl, later identified as Karen Thompson, is found brutally murdered at a sawmill. Mabel tells Sheriff Dan what she saw and he is now sure Winston is his man and he is duly arrested. However, Mabel is not as convinced and sets out to investigate.

One of the greatest strengths of the book is the characterisation especially of Mabel who is just lovely. She’s kind, caring and a very brave ‘Momma Bear’ which she needs to be as her investigation leads her to challenge the ‘authority’ of a vile racist group led by a local drug dealer, Larson. When they threaten to lynch Winston her actions save the young man but it puts her family especially her two young boys in danger. The racism in the area is deeply disturbing and is portrayed starkly well especially the testosterone fuelled thugs in Larson sphere of orbit and they add sexism into the unsavoury mix. Other characters that stand out are Mabel’s children and her lovely niece Kerry who has ooodles of personality and plenty of backbone. I really like that Mabel discusses ‘Roots’ with son Hector and he then displays such wisdom that makes his mother think. The other excellent aspect is the remote setting of Blue River which is a perfect backdrop to these events and adds atmosphere as does the vibe in Mabel’s diner. I especially like the latter as it’s easy to visualise her working the room with a pot of coffee, wheedling information and casting risque jokes! It’s an easy to read novel and although it takes a little while to get going once it does the pace is fast.

Overall, yes, I’m certain the premise is far fetched, there are things that Mabel becomes privy to that I’m certain she wouldn’t in reality. However, Mabel carries the day and sweeps aside any reservations! She is so well meaning and I love how she takes on the law and the racist crew in Blue River at personal risk.

With thanks to NetGalley and IBPA for the arc for an honest review.

Mabel runs the diner and motel in a small town. A single mother raising two boys and her neice - both parents dead. She is certainly struggling but helps all those she can.
Over the years, it's been overcome with drugs and racists. Mabel hates seeing her community failing each other as Larson, the leader of the drug trade and racists, continues to run things. He has people on his payroll - the state police, business owners, etc.
A young couple enter Maybel's dinner, clearly in love, having an argument. The young woman is found brutally murdered. The young black man arrested and assumed guilty.
Mabel knows he's innocent - she struggles to find anyone to believe him, no one willing to investigate the murder. She begins her own investigation - quickly on the bad sad of Larson.
Courage. Integrity. Mabel fights for what she believes, providing a struggling town with an exemplary example of what a woman can accomplish.
Quick, easy read.

"Heart of a Runaway Girl" by Trevor Wiltzen was Small-town Mystery at its best!

Washington State is known for the rainy forests of the Olympic Peninsula, the beauty of Mount Rainier, Puget Sound, Columbia River and then there are apples, tons and tons of apples! In small town Blue River, Washington there are farmers, miners, sawmill operators, white supremacists, skinhead drug dealers and lots and lots of drugs! Hot damn, it's the 1980's!

It's also where hardworking diner and motel owner-operator Mabel Davison lives. Mabel loves waitressing, loves taking care of her customers and serving them an endless cup of the best coffee around! She uses endearments when she speaks to people and she's a toucher, too. She just can't help it, she can't keep her hands to herself! She wants people to know she cares! It's who she is!

Right now she's focused on the young couple sitting in a booth at the back of the diner for the last hour. Talking intently, face-to-face, then moving apart, obviously arguing, voices raised, then quiet. The next day Mabel is told by Sheriff Dan the girl is found at the sawmill brutally murdered and her boyfriend accused of her murder. The boyfriend is Winston who doesn't stand a chance as a black man in this racist town.

Mabel believes Winston is innocent. He has to be! She just knows it because she has a gift. She can read people. All she has to do is look into their eyes. She looked at Winston's eyes and knows he didn't murder this girl. He cared about her, maybe even tried to help her. Mabel knows that staying silent is wrong and helping in some way is the right thing to do. She's lived in Blue River her entire life and she knows there's racism in this small town. She's just not going to stand for anyone being railroaded, targeted because of race.

I grew totally in love with brave and gutsy Mabel in this small-town Mystery. I think of her as a 'Great Big Mama Bear' to her family, her friends and her customers of construction workers, miners, truckers and locals. They love her edgy jokes and they love Mabel like...well, like family!

This book is the first in a new series by this debut author. His writing is creative, fun and - with Mabel as a super-sleuth, somewhat improbable, yes perhaps even impossible, detective - it was entirely entertaining! I can't wait to see what happens in this small town next with 'Mabel Davison, #2'!

I highly recommend this book and rate it 4 1/2 stars, pushing it to 5 stars because, well...because of Mabel!
_________________________
Thank you to NetGalley, IBPA and Trevor Wiltzen for an ARC of this book. This is my honest review.

The main character, Mabel Davison, is the star of this novel. She's a down-to-earth single mum and a waitress. She owns the diner and an attached motel, but she isn't rolling in money. Mabel works hard and long and tries to raise her kids right. But if anyone lives the expression' heart of gold' it's Mabel. Caring for others is a huge part of her character.

So when there's a murder in the town of Blue River and the local police pick up a young black teen who Mabel believes to be innocent, she speaks up. And she speaks loud.

The town of Blue River is small and depressed, and built along a highway that leads from "nowhere to nowhere fast". Sure, it has a logging industry, a marijuana industry, and…is there a third burgeoning harder drugs industry? But on the whole, the town is on Struggle Street. There are also a whole lot of questions regarding who is really running Blue River. Is the one local cop in control? Or does Larson, a man controlling the towns drug trade, along with his gang of strong arms—made up of a significant number of white supremacists—really in control of things?

The thing about Mabel is, she doesn't back down when she sees a wrong. Even when she turns amateur sleuth, and things get dangerous. There were times when I found her decisions excruciating - yet I couldn't help but love the hell out of her.

This book is set in the 80s. Readers who lived through the 80s (like me, ahem), and those interested in that particular decade will enjoy that aspect.

Another wonderful thing about Heart of a Runaway Girl is that, in terms of genre, it sits in a lovely little niche spot. It's beyond cosy mystery but doesn't take its thrills so far as to become one of those novels that leave you feeling wounded. I have a soft spot for those.

I didn't realise when I began reading that Wiltzen has more Mabel escapades on the way. But as this story is driven by Mabel and her character, finding that out was very welcome because this first book earned every star.

Many thanks to Net Galley and the author Trevor Wiltzen for my copy of this novel, given in return for my honest review.

I so very much enjoyed this debut mystery! Mabel was such a firecracker powerful mama on a mission and this book had just enough mystery to keep you hanging on and wanting more. Mabel is a single mom raising two boys and her niece on her on her own, all while running a diner/motel. Mabel meets a young couple in her diner and ends up in a murder mystery and her instinct in FIRE! I love the family aspect of the book, the small town aspect, how we subtly covered racial injustice but didn't flood the book with it. This book was a solid debut and I absolutely enjoyed every bit of it. The author's website shows that this book is the first of a series and I cannot wait to continue.

A fantastic and easy-to-get-lost-in start of a new mystery series featuring diner/motel owner Mabel Davison.

It’s 1986. The small town of Blue River, Washington is known for the new mines, farmers, the sawmill, racist drug dealers, and Mabel’s Diner. One evening while Mabel is waitressing, she witnesses a young couple having some sort of argument at the back booth.

When the teen girl ends up being brutally murdered later that night, her boyfriend lands himself in jail. Word gets around to Mabel, and the news does not sit right with her. You see, kind-hearted and loving Mabel has a gift. She feels she can read people through their eyes. She is convinced the boyfriend had nothing to do with the murder. What’s worse is that she thinks he’s being pinned for the murder because he’s Black.

In a mountain town full of drug dealers and extremists/racist trash, Mabel knows there is more going on...and she is not going to let it slide. She decides to take matters into her own hands and question the sheriff, look for evidence, and make sure the right thing happens. Unfortunately for Mabel, this puts her and her family in danger. But what people don’t understand about Mabel is that she is not one to give up when it comes to righting wrongs.

I devoured this tale, and Mabel is one of my favorite characters I’ve read in a long time. She’s a tough cookie and an extremely hard worker who provides for her children and niece, and she’s a light to most everyone in the town. Sure, it may be a little far-fetched that this waitress/diner-motel owner turns into an amateur sleuth, but it is highly entertaining nevertheless.

This is not a cozy mystery, but it’s also not too heavy. Debut author Trevor Wiltzen does a phenomenal job of balancing Mabel and her investigative shenanigans (some of them are funny, all of them are pretty clever) and the very real issue of racism, which is obviously still prevalent today.

Mabel tells her young son, “I guess I don’t have the answers, son. I don’t know what it’s like to feel racism. But you’re right about the silence. Silence allows racism to flourish.” Mabel won’t let fear silence her.

She also calls everyone “luv” and likes to tell dirty jokes to the diner patrons. I think the world would benefit greatly if we all had a Mabel in our lives, and her charm is why I’m rating this 4.5 stars, rounded up. Not to mention, it’s just a great story that was hard for me to put down.

Thank you to IBPA and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

It’s the 1980’s, and Mabel Davison, owner of a small town diner and motel, is without question, a sweet, uncomplaining, and kind hearted lady, who wants to help everyone, regularly dishing out coffee and slices of her freshly baked pies for free, which makes her even more popular in her hometown of Blue River, but there’s a naivety about her that makes her appear very childlike at times, and makes her act first, without thinking things through.

Blue River may be a small mountain town, but it has a big drug problem, and a fair amount of extremists, with their own ideas of justice, the kind who sort out ‘problems’ in their own way, on their own terms, a place where the rule of law means little!

When a young couple get into an argument in Mabel’s diner, she doesn’t think too much about it, a lovers quarrel perhaps, but then the boy, Winston, is arrested for the rape and murder of the white girl Karen Thompson. Now, there are a lot of racists in this small mountain town, and Winston happens to be a black boy, so automatically they have their killer right there!

Innocent until proven guilty you’d think? Well no, not according to white supremacist Larson, the biggest drug manufacturer and supplier in these parts, who also owns most of the property in town. Winston is actually one of Larson’s drug dealers, but that doesn’t stop him and his mob, from going on the warpath, the aim being to lynch Winston.

Mabel doesn’t believe Winston killed Karen, she believes she can ‘read’ people, so she takes it upon herself to start asking some awkward questions, but of course she makes herself a target for Larson, and no one gets away with treading on his toes. He threatens Mabel, and Larson doesn’t make idle threats, so Mabel is in for a very tough time.

This is author Trevor Wiltzen’s debut novel - his characterisations were spot on, (Mabel is delightful), the storyline itself highlights issues of white privilege, and racism, and underscore this story right the way through – all highly topical, both then and now, and sometimes these themes make for uncomfortable reading, but the book succeeds in raising awareness of these important
themes, and are crucial to the story.

However, Mabel is a woman of principle, and with her on the case, you can be sure that she’ll fight for justice, regardless of the colour of one’s skin.

All in all an enjoyable and engaging read.

Mabel Davison was the owner/operator of a diner and motel in small town Blue River, "practically a castoff from the highway". Mabel's clientele included construction workers, truck drivers, miners and locals. She served coffee "on the house...My coffee here is always fresh, free and fast...". "Her charm, swagger, and a little bawdry humor were the only gifts she'd give her male customers...[who] often treated her more like a therapist or a bartender...". In the 1980's, this small Washington State town was a hotbed of drugs and extremists. The residents, including farmers and sawmill operators were "a sorry lot of folks...with nothing in their pockets...any kid with ambition wanted to leave".

A young couple, seated in a booth in the diner, were engaged in an intense conversation. Winston Washington looked like he cared for Karen Thompson, however, he looked scared for her. When Karen was brutally murdered, Winston was promptly charged and arrested. Since an angry mob of men in trucks gathered at Sheriff Dan's storefront office, the State Police were called in taking Winston to jail in Seattle.

Larson was "the local kingpin who lorded over Blue River...The law didn't rule this town. It was Larson. Winston was a low-end drug dealer getting his drugs from Larson". Mabel didn't think that Winston had killed Karen. She trusted her intuition. She claimed, "I have a gift...it's in the eyes...when I look into them...it's like I can read a person's soul...". Larson warned Mabel. If you interfere in my business, I'll interfere in yours. A big burly trucker piped up in the diner, "You threaten Mabel, you deal with me...". Mabel "felt strangely safe among these rough out-of-town men". Mabel, mother of two sons, a niece in residence, a motel to run and waitressing in her diner, will now don another hat, private investigator. Despite lack of proof, she is convinced of Winston's innocence. She needs to watch herself and her loved ones. "Sometimes it is not safe here...you know this town".

"Heart of a Runaway Girl (Mabel Davison, #1)" by debut author Trevor Wiltzen is the first book in a new series. Mabel's star shines bright as penned by Wiltzen. The character development of the Blue River residents is superb. Mabel's "coffee, pie and hospitality" will handily nurture those in need and aid in future mysteries.

Thank you Trevor Wiltzen, Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.