Dark Ride by Lou Berney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Hardy is a hapless slacker working as a scarer at a third-rate amusement park and content in that role. Then he comes across two young children with obvious signs of abuse. He tries to get child protective services to investigate but gets nowhere with them. Slowly he begins to grow a spine and makes it his mission to rescue those kids. With the help of an unlikely motley crew (a lesbian goth, a teenage fanboy from the amusement park, and a dodgy prepper landlord) he launches, i.e. stumbles through, an investigation and eventual active rescue.
The dialog is witty and the suspense is, well, suspenseful throughout. As a retired FBI agent, I can attest that the investigative work is surprisingly credible (and entirely foolish for an amateur to undertake). I was amused at first and then became wrapped up in the action. What started as tongue-in-cheek morphed into a page-turner.