Early in Mindy Misener's new novel, Good Guys (Melville House; 320 pages), we realize that the bad actor introduced in the beginning will not be the sole antagonist. Instead, the novel creates a creeping sense of evil across its storylines, with very few people acting in good faith. At its center are two sisters: the older Georgie, struggling with life in her early 20s, and the younger Jo, enrolled at the elite Peabody College. An ominous past hangs between them, and their inability to communicate reveals a layered drama in which trust is rarely deserved.

The novel hits on a host of common themes that define the mid-2000s (and, unfortunately, beyond): predatory male behavior, opioid abuse, and coming to terms with American actions in the War in Iraq. It also turns to non-denominational Christian churches that may care more about serving one man's ego than a congregation. Wisely, the church is used as a unifying feature, tying together the novel's many themes. Jo and Georgie's family moved to Maine when the girls were young to follow a pastor with whom their father had a close relationship. Jo identifies the issues with the church early, noting that her mother left shortly after the family moved to follow Pastor Mark (though she likely would have left anyway). The arrival in Maine already shows cracks in Jo's faith: "But in retrospect it became clear that my faith in God, my faith in faith, and my faith in my father had already started to come apart on that dark, tree-covered road, tiny rocks pinging our car." That faith is further fractured when Pastor Mark's son, salt-of-the-earth Gary, develops an abusive relationship with teenage Jo, becoming one of several predatory men within the novel. The church's influence likely shaped Gary, whose presence on and off the page pushes the narrative forward in more ways than one.

Among the most important decisions writers make is when to enter and when to exit. It's not uncommon to encounter novels whose basic outline feels familiar. So how does a book subvert our expectations and make it feel like we're encountering something new? Here, Misener does it by knowing when to exit her story, leading us down a path that, once we can guess what will happen to the characters, she shifts in a different direction. After Gary ultimately dies in Iraq, and pictures of his involvement in possible war crimes appear with his belongings, Jo uses the information, and the help of an influential (yet, again, problematic) professor, to write an article exposing Gary to further her career. Jo's first venture into journalism doesn't land with the success she anticipates. Unresolved issues also linger between her and her sister. Jo's a protagonist, and the author telegraphs a path where the people (men) who wronged her get what's coming to them. But not so fast. Instead, the novel moves in a new direction, and we can appreciate how the author keeps us guessing until the end.

Through a different lens, does it take something away from the book that it challenges reader expectations? We don't get the ending we expect, and an ending that many readers will ultimately want, but imagine a different approach for Jo and Georgie, one in which they get more "wins," and I'd argue that book feels too easy, too ordinary. The novel's resolution will likely linger after the last page, though it may frustrate some. I think Misener deserves immense credit for leading our horses to water, then telling them they can't drink.

The novel features clean, straightforward prose, shifting back and forth between the sisters' perspectives. While there's never any ambiguity about whose point of view we're in (chapters are marked with each sister's name), both are written in first-person, and their voices sound quite similar. Granted, they are sisters, raised in the same family, in the same region, and only a few years apart in age, so their voices aren't likely to differ much. Both are a bit jaded, distrustful, and fed up with the world, and they're prone to being alone, so at times their voices blend when they could use more to separate them. That similarity, though, isn’t a substantial distraction, with plenty of plot to keep interest high.

Good Guys feels grounded in mid-2000s small-town America, with its quaintness and seedy underbelly. While the voices of its two main protagonists tend to blend, their struggles share similarities the characters themselves don't realize. It subverts readers' expectations past the halfway mark and becomes a fresh read, giving us characters to cheer for without letting them off the hook too easily. Fans of well-paced, character-driven fiction, particularly coming-of-age stories from this period, will appreciate the novel, especially those who enjoy its exploration of the intersection of faith and hidden trauma.