For author Jess Lourey, The Quarry Girls is more than a fictional thriller, it is a journey back to childhood and her hometown. "I grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota in the 70s," says Lourey who remembers being 4-years-old when she and her sister were escorted home by a police officer and told to stay inside. "There were two - and potentially three - serial killers operating in St. Cloud in the 70s."
In The Quarry Girls, Heather Cash is the teenaged protagonist who lives in Pantown, a neighborhood of St. Cloud wherein all the basements of homes are connected by underground tunnels - the product of a failed business magnate. Heather's first steps into the murder and mystery that makes up the book begins in the tunnels and leads to a wide cast of characters and a wider list of questions.
The Quarry Girls (winner of the 2023 Minnesota Book Award for genre fiction) can be found anywhere books are sold, but Lourey has a local preference. "I'm such a big fan of Fitger's Booksellers in Duluth and I believe they still have sign copies of The Quarry Girls."
Minnesota Reads is produced at The North 103.3 with funding provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.