The witty, compassionate, and suspenseful story of a woman seeking love and fighting small-town hypocrisy and corruption, by the prize-winning author of A Hundred Veils.
A teacher falls in love, then puts that love at risk when she begins a secret fight to expose a pedophile preying on her students.
Nicole is already in danger of being fired for objecting to the new alt-right textbooks required in her school. Now she steps up to defend a student who’s been receiving unwanted nude pictures on his phone from a girl he hardly knows. And then Nicole starts receiving nude pictures herself.
Nicole loses her job over this but meets Ralph, the editor of the Shady Park newspaper, who suspects that a member of the board of education has been confiscating nude pictures from students for his own pleasure and profit.
Nicole falls in love with Ralph, and their happiness seems secured, but the police call her in for questioning. She agrees to secretly wear a wire to try to entrap Rev. Blatchford, the board member, but the police insist that “the press,” meaning Ralph, not be told about it.
Without telling Ralph where she’s going , Nicole takes a flash drive the police have given her to a “soiree” at which Blatchford buys and sells child pornography. She doesn’t return to Ralph’s that night. And this is only the first of several secret missions she runs for the police, each more dangerous than the one before.
Keeping her undercover work for the police secret arouses Ralph’s suspicion, and Nicole knows she’s in danger of losing him, but she’s seen the harm Blatchford is causing her students and can’t refuse to help put him in jail.
Shady Park Secrets exposes problems in contemporary society, including political corruption and xenophobia, but the story is told with compassion and a wry sense of humor. It is a fast-paced, cleverly plotted, and satisfying conclusion to the Shady Park Chronicles series that began with First World Problems and Shady Park Panic.
The Shady Park Chronicles:
Book 1: First World Problems
Book 2: Shady Park Panic
Book 3: Shady Park Secrets
