Jackal — Cover to Cover

HorrorThriller

Oct 12

Author: Erin E. Adams
Publisher: Bantam
Publication Date: October 4, 2022
Pages: 352
Genre: Horror / Thriller

🚨 SPOILER WARNING: This is my Cover-to-Cover discussion of Jackal. I’m talking about EVERYTHING. If you haven’t finished the book yet, stop here and come back when you have!

SJR Quick Take

Wow. I absolutely was biting my nails, going back and forth with who the killer could be and why. Erin E. Adams did a great job, and honestly, even without the supernatural element, I was on the edge of my seat.

I loved how we get to peek into Liz and her background and slowly understand why her memories of being back in Johnstown aren’t all happy, especially because she is Black. There were so many people I suspected throughout this book, and it was so easy to see how almost everyone in Liz’s life could somehow be involved.

I was truly wondering who Liz could trust, if the police were involved, and whether the more she dug, the easier it would be for them to try to blame everything on her. And unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely wrong about that.

Liz Comes Home

Liz is coming back to Johnstown for her best friend Mel’s wedding, but pretty quickly, we understand why she is ready to get back on that train and say bye almost as soon as she arrives.

We get a glimpse into what growing up here was like for Liz. She wasn’t really “Black enough” for the other Black girls because her mother was a doctor, but she was obviously too dark for the white girls.

She was an outcast.

Mel was the one person who, in a way, stood up for her, but even Mel, who tries to be anti-racist, still says things to Liz that hurt. We also learn about Johnstown itself, the flood, the Mill, and the history of Black and brown people being pushed out of the town. The book starts showing us pretty early that the history of this place matters to what is happening now.

The first person Liz meets after getting off the train is Denise, whose daughter, Keisha, disappeared years earlier. At this point, Liz doesn't realize just how important that interaction is going to become.

Liz and Her Mom

Then we meet Liz’s mom, and she immediately jumps into questions about why her daughter is now single and no longer engaged. We also learn Liz cut her hair, and her mother isn't pleased about that either. I guess, in traditional older-generation fashion, she wants to know what happened, why he left, and whether it was Liz’s fault.

Now, I don’t understand why they do this. Like we all want to be old and single, especially when we reach our 30s and they want grandkids. Maybe they expect us women to stick it out and try to work through everything, which is not okay anymore, in my opinion. A relationship is a two-way street.

As we learn more about Liz's engagement, we find out she wasn't truly happy, and that should have been reason enough. She tried to pick the man who looked good on paper but wasn't good for her soul. Later, we learn there was much more happening in that relationship than Liz initially tells her mother.

Mel, Garrett, and the Wedding

Liz rushes to the wedding, and we learn more about Mel, Garrett, Caroline, and Mel’s family. Now, I understand why Mel kept talking to her family, but she should have established some very serious ground rules or told them not to come.

Because I’ll be damned if you try to tell me it’s not too late to run because of someone’s skin color. Garrett obviously loves Mel and gives her everything. Like Liz says, they are perfect together, and they created the perfect little girl, Caroline.

I also didn't like how we kind of have to tolerate Mel’s brother, Nick, who needed to be checked too. I don't 100 percent understand why, after all these years, he is still so anti-Liz. Yes, she is Black, but they have been around each other enough that he should at least be able to admit she has been a good friend to his sister.

Then there’s Lauren, giving off a weird vibe, and Chris, Liz’s old high-school crush. We hear whispers that Chris was into Liz, but nothing ever happened between them. I wasn't sure yet if we were going to get more to that story. We definitely did.

Caroline and the Woods

Unfortunately, Caroline hasn't been told the stories and warnings about the woods the way Liz and other young Black girls were.

Caroline doesn't fear them. Liz absolutely does. We know something happened to Liz in those woods when she was younger, but she either can't remember everything or doesn't want to remember it.

Now, as a parent, I always make sure to tell my kids to stay within eyesight of me or another trusted adult. Liz isn't a parent, so maybe telling the kids to come inside while she got a drink never crossed her mind, but another parent should have been watching too.

Then boom. Caroline is gone.

I'm glad Liz immediately tries to go into the woods after her, but once she realized Caroline was really missing, I wish she had said something sooner. I know she felt guilty, but the sooner everyone knew, the sooner everybody could have started looking. And from there, everything changes.

The Missing Girls

One thing I loved was how Erin gave each victim her own insert so we could see pieces of what they experienced when they were taken. It was sad and scary.

I kept thinking this had to be a copycat killer or a relative of the previous killer because who could possibly stay active for this long? Liz eventually reconnects with Denise and lets it slip that she knew Keisha and lies about being friends. That helps her unlock a huge piece of the puzzle.

Black girls have been going missing for decades. Liz meets with their mothers and is shocked and horrified by just how many young Black girls have disappeared without their cases being taken seriously. We've already seen glimpses of what happened to some of them, which makes that meeting even harder.

Now Liz knows Caroline isn't simply a little girl lost in the woods. Something much bigger is happening.

Liz Starts Investigating

Liz is ready to go all in for her goddaughter.

She meets Doug and is trying her best to be brave and very CSI about everything, but this isn't her territory like sales is. She's trying to stick to what's important and get to the bottom of things.

She starts noticing details like the blue car. Her nightmares become darker, and looking back, I can see how they were leaving us hints about what was happening supernaturally.

I also liked watching Liz slowly start feeling like her younger self again. She keeps trying to remind herself that she's no longer a teenager, but that's hard when you go home to people who still remember you a certain way.

Meanwhile, the search for Caroline continues day after day, and I'm wondering why they aren't moving farther and farther out instead of waiting around for the dogs. The police seemed incompetent and not nearly as worried as they should have been. Mel’s family wasn't doing enough for me either. They knew those grounds. I would have had people searching for Caroline 24/7 in cycles.

And all those people coming in and out of Mel's house? No. At that point, everybody is a suspect.

You, you, and you. You could all be involved. You're not getting in my house.

Liz and Mel

This is where I really started getting frustrated with Mel. I like that Liz is a bit messy. She has every right to be. But when Liz tries to explain what she has discovered, Mel is seeing things as the white mother of a Black child.

Mel knows what racism is, but she doesn't understand what it truly means to be Black in this society or what that can mean for her daughter. Even if Mel is white, Caroline is Black.

So I got mad when she came at Liz with an attitude about not lumping Caroline in with those “troubled” girls. Because Mel was stereotyping those other Black girls herself. That's where we start seeing some of those threads that still attach Mel to this town and her family, even though she believes differently from them.

Then she leaves Liz in the woods—the one place she knows this woman is scared to death of—after throwing her damn phone. I understand Mel's anger. She blames Liz for losing Caroline. But if this is truly your best friend and she is trying to fix her mistake, why wouldn't you at least listen? Why not ask Nick to look into what she's telling you?

At this point, Liz knows this is more than Caroline simply being lost.

Now Liz Looks Guilty

After finding her phone, Liz keeps going and stumbles across a nasty tarp with blood and guts underneath it.

She's hoping it isn't Caroline. Before she can really do anything, the rescue and cadaver dogs are out, a dog finds her, and suddenly Liz looks extremely guilty.

I understand why. They don't have many clues, and Liz hasn't been telling everybody everything because she doesn't know who she can trust. But now the gossip starts. Her mother is worried and wants her to leave Johnstown, but Liz refuses.

Then things get even worse. Someone gets into her mother's house, and Liz finds a dead deer on the table. I would have been fuming. Oh, you're coming after me and my family now because I'm trying to find out the truth?

Chris, Lauren, and That Damn Pink Crayon

By now, Chris has visited Liz, and she has already learned Lauren is pissed that Chris is showing interest in her.

Lauren was giving me weird vibes. It's one thing to be the town gossip, but woman, you are messy and all over a man you had years—probably decades—ago. Liz did a good job restraining herself because I would have been asking why she was following me and Chris around like a stalker.

But Liz is trying to stay off everyone's radar. Chris helps after the deer incident, but then Liz sees that pink crayon in his truck. She keeps that information locked away for the moment, but now Chris is back on my suspect list too.

I kept going back and forth with him because I could tell he genuinely liked Liz. But I also wondered if that was somehow going to connect him to the girls. Maybe he couldn't be with Liz when they were younger, so he started taking it out on other Black girls? Listen, I watch too many crime shows.

Keisha, the Bar, and Liz's Past

Things keep getting worse. At the bar, Liz lets it slip that Keisha wasn't really her friend and that she was at the party when Keisha disappeared.

That causes even more commotion. Liz also starts drinking more and more while her dreams get darker, almost like her brain is trying to unlock something she buried years ago. Nick has done a background check on her, and we learn about the domestic-violence call involving her ex-fiancé.

Liz is shook. Now she's being blamed for Caroline while also having pieces of her private life dragged out. This might have been the part that would have made me snap too.

You're supposed to be this badass cop, and now you think you know me because you ran a background check? After all these years of knowing Liz, Nick's dislike of her seems to have only festered. I could absolutely understand why Liz started wondering if Nick and his father could somehow be involved, especially with how they treated her and how nonchalant they could seem.

And where is Garrett in all of this? Your child is missing. At this point, I would be checking every possibility.

Doug, Liz's Mom, and the Case Against Liz

Liz sees the cigarettes and asks Doug to check the DNA. By now, it becomes clear someone is building a case against her.

Doug gets caught messing with evidence and is supposedly fired. We don't know yet if everything he's telling Liz is true, but he says he's done. He's lost everything and wants her to move on. They fight in his basement, and Liz lets out this animalistic growl that scares both her and Doug.

She grabs what she can and leaves. Eventually, Liz finally tells her mother what's really happening. Her mother reveals more too, including why she never opened her own clinic in Johnstown. She was afraid of being targeted.

That helped me understand her mother differently. That night, Liz ends up sleepwalking. It threw me at first, but between the stress, the drinking, and everything connected to what happened in those woods, something is clearly pushing harder and harder against the memories she buried.

Chris and Liz

Liz stumbles across Chris again, and those damn blue flowers outside his trailer had me wondering about him and Lauren all over again. Chris helps her, and with everything going on and Liz's adrenaline running high, they kiss and have sex. And apparently Liz finally gets what she's been wanting: double O's.

She even makes breakfast afterward. But the awkwardness between them isn't because Chris doesn't care. He really does have feelings for Liz, and he feels guilty about leaving her in the woods when they were teenagers.

Liz finally tells him everything. She asks about the pink crayon, and he gives her an explanation.

Maybe it's the truth. Maybe it isn't.

At this point, I didn't trust anybody. Then we learn the bonfire area has been fenced off, Liz may have been working from the wrong map, and Chris thinks he saw a young girl in the woods with a white woman.

Now they have to move.

Going Back Into the Woods

Liz finally brings everyone together and tells them what she has discovered about Caroline and the other girls. Nick is shocked, but at this point, he's willing to do anything to find his niece.

Liz and her mother also have another serious conversation before she leaves. Liz finally lets everything spill about her relationship and what she remembers about her father. After all this chaos and trauma, I felt like Liz and her mother had grown closer and finally understood each other a little better.

Then it's time.

Liz, Mel, Garrett, Nick, Chris, and the others head into the woods to find Caroline. And then Garrett drops another bomb. Chris was involved with Keisha.

Sir. Why didn't you say something earlier?!

Chris admits he dated Keisha. He remembers her smelling like candy and being in the woods. He says he was a mess at the time and his life wasn't going the way he wanted, but he would never hurt her.

Once again, I'm questioning Chris. Then everything goes sideways. The group gets split up. And finally, Liz and Mel find Caroline.

Alive. But she's not alone.

Doug and Kirsten?!

DOUG AND HIS WIFE?!

I was like, DAMN.

Kirsten had seemed nice enough on the surface, although we knew she was carrying serious anger and grief surrounding the death of their child and everything that happened afterward. But Doug?

The man Liz had been trusting? The man helping her investigate? He's been connected to this the entire time. A fight breaks out. Mel is stabbed. Doug grabs Liz. Caroline manages to run. And then the supernatural side of Jackal fully breaks open.

What Was Really in the Woods

We finally learn what the darkness in those woods really is and how all of this connects to Johnstown's history, death, destruction, Doug's family, the missing girls, and Liz herself.

We also finally understand what happened the night Keisha disappeared. Liz was there. And what happened in those woods connects to the scar on her wrist and why her wrist and senses have been becoming more sensitive since she came home. The supernatural threat has been tied to Liz for years.

We learn why these girls were being chosen, too. They were exceptional. They had things Doug and his family resented.

And Doug's dumbass excuses were infuriating. But after everything Liz has survived, she's not giving up now. The entity wants Liz, but she manages to trick this Anubis-wannabe god, confront Doug, and free the girls' spirits from its grasp. This woman has spent the entire book questioning herself, her memories, and who she can trust.

Now she trusts herself. And she fights back.

Caroline Is Saved, But Mel...

Caroline survives. Liz survives. Doug and Kirsten are finally exposed. But Mel doesn't make it. And that part makes what happens afterward even more frustrating. Now the media swarms Johnstown.

Not because of the case Liz uncovered involving decades of missing and murdered Black girls. Mel's death brings the attention. Mel was white and died fighting to save her child from a serial killer.

After everything that happened, the families of those girls are finally beginning to get answers and some kind of closure. Caroline is also able to give her account of what happened—and she knows the girls' names.

That hit me. These girls who had been ignored, forgotten, or written off finally had someone saying their names. Meanwhile, Doug's manifesto is influencing even more hate. Garrett and Nick are coming together to protect Mel's legacy and her property. Liz is healing. Chris reaches out. But nothing about what happened can simply be put away.

Why This One Hit Me Personally

This book was so good, but my heart hurt reading it, especially as a black girl from the country. Growing up, my mom always warned me that if I got caught doing something stupid with my white friends, I would get in more trouble.

She also warned me that if I went missing, only my family might try to find me. And because we didn't have much money, she wouldn't necessarily know who to call or have the resources to get people to pay attention.

So she always told me to be smart.

I remember a small group of friends inviting me to bonfires and drinking. I passed on some of them, but it never failed that someone would get drunk, and being one of maybe three Black people at the party, eventually someone might let the N-word drop.

Then came:

Oh, it's not about you. You're one of the good ones. You don't count. But I do count. I'm Black. My family is Black. You can't use that word and then decide I'm somehow exempt from what you mean when you say it.

Some guys might date you for clout but wouldn't bring you home because they knew their families were hella racist. It's crazy how much Jackal reminded me of my own small hometown.

Obviously, I wasn't dealing with a supernatural creature in the woods, but I understood those warnings. I understood being around people who could like you while still holding racist ideas about people who look like you. I understood why Liz could return home as a grown woman and suddenly feel like that younger version of herself again.

That's why the story hit such a nerve for me.

The Characters, Mystery, and Pacing

Erin E. Adams did an amazing job with the characters and pacing.

I loved that I genuinely didn't know who to trust.

Chris?

Lauren?

Nick?

The police?

Doug?

Kirsten?

At different points, I could make a case for almost everybody.

And the formatting helped the mystery too. I loved how the page layout and perspective changed depending on whether we were following Liz, entering a dream, seeing one of the missing girls' experiences, or getting a glimpse from the killer's side. Those shifts made the girls feel like part of the story instead of just names on a list. Even without the supernatural element, I would have been on the edge of my seat trying to figure out who was taking these girls and why. The supernatural horror just gave me another layer to unravel.

Final Verdict

I absolutely loved Jackal.

It gave me a mystery that had me constantly changing my suspect list, horror that genuinely made me nervous about what Liz was going to find in those woods, characters who were messy and complicated, and a story about missing Black girls that hit much closer to home than I expected.

I was biting my nails the entire time. And by the end, my heart hurt for those girls and their mothers.

Erin E. Adams did an amazing job.

⭐ Overall: 5/5
🔪 Intensity: 5/5
💔 Emotional Impact: 5/5

Would I Recommend?

Absolutely.

I would recommend Jackal to everyone. Even if supernatural horror isn't usually your thing, there is enough mystery, suspense, and real-world horror here to keep you hooked.

Would I Read Again?