Boy, 9, Missing

The author's use of adjectives to describe emotional states was so limited. She often using the word sh..t
I found it more than unpleasant. Some of the episodes were not believable. Author has need of more writing experiences.

I'm honestly surprised this book found a publisher. I actually checked to see if this was self-published because I couldn't imagine anyone paying money for the rights. It's 95% plot, and that plot is absurd and crazily overwrought. There's virtually no character development. (Has there ever been a character who disappeared on the page more than Amy?) Although I guess you could say that having a psychological wreck who's also a plagiarist (why was that detail required?) morph into an incredibly insightful amateur detective in the blink of an eye is development of a sort. I actually laughed out loud at the PAPERCLIP!!!!! disclosure, when our hero suddenly develops MacGyver-level skills. And the weird detours that the plot takes are inexplicable--how could so many pages be spent on the school principal's role, including more than anyone would ever want to know about a massive church fundraiser that apparently takes weeks of ten hour days to plan? ("Count out ten boxes of plastic forks!" says one of the exhausted volunteers.) Was there a minimum page count required by the publisher? My least demanding categories for books are "beach read" and "airplane read". This novel wouldn't qualify for either.

** spoiler alert ** Let me start with saying, I really wanted to like this book. I really did. The premise seemed like something I would like. The reviews were raves. But . . .

I can rate it exactly two-and-a-half, I would. Because while the story telling is really good, I was taken out of the story too often.

Lucas, 9 years old, is found dead in his parents' bath tub on an evening when they were hosting a dinner party with another family. The only, uhm, witness, is Sam, 10. Who says nothing about it. Nothing. For twenty-three years. And then his own nine-year-old son, Matthew, goes missing.

The story is told in first person narrative from Francis's point of view. Francis is Lucas's brother. He was just thirteen when it happened, and from then on he was struck with ridiculous anxiety some of which, when described, made me consider MONK on TV. He's now an adult, has changed his last name to hide from the past, and works at the local newspaper where his boss is his old paramour.

The cast of characters include Francis's fifteen-year-old daughter Amy who just came to live with him when her mother decided her career in Paris was more important than being a mom. Amy is a superfluous character and to be honest, I found the story reminded me of her existence. It could have easily been told without her. Francis was so wrapped up in finding Matthew that he doesn't see Amy for days. And she's only been in town for days. Granted, that plays into his insecure dad role, but it wasn't necessary. Francis is a mess already.

He has unlikely allies with Sam's wife Miranda, who first attacks him; Cam, his aforementioned boss; Kira, a local news reporter who is writing Sam's story; and a psychologist he tracks down after searching for his own father who has also gone missing and is the prime suspect in Matthew's kidnapping.

Of course, a good mystery needs red herrings and misdirection. But some of the other characters and subplots are unnecessary and distracting. The narrative jumps from adult-Francis telling it as it happened, to the occasional "draft" written by Kira- in third person narrative, telling the events as relayed to her by Sam, to flashbacks. But these tend to jumble and are at times hard to follow. This both adds to and distracts from the story, leaving the reader feeling a little more unbalanced than they should.

The resolution was unfulfilling, a conglomerate of tying up loose ends and at parts, what Flannery O'Connor has stated as the "surprising but inevitable ending." However, the wrap-up was very predictable and read a bit like someone trying to tie up all the ends, while unfortunately missing some.

The middle section of the book was heavy with F-bombs; not terribly overloaded but much more so than the rest of the book.

There were typos throughout the novel, which greatly detract from the reading experience. A few punctuation errors, word usage, and spelling. There were at least two instances of word usage where I couldn't tell if the author failed at being clever, or an editor missed an error.

The biggest plot inconsistency happens right away: In the first chapter, the medical examiner stands over the tub, looking down at the "freakishly contorted" body in the water. Two pages later, we learn that prior to any officials coming on scene, Lucas's and Francis's mother had pulled Lucas's body from the tub to try to resuscitate him. Did she put his unresponsive body back into the tub?

The author capitalizes the word "dumpster" throughout the book.

I don't think this book is terrible, but I also don't think it's great. I can't recommend it, but I won't stop you from reading it.

The idea was good but the book was clumsily written. Characters were written in who had no importance at all to the story. In the end, main characters werelet hangng. What happened to them. We are guessing which person of 3 went to jail. There should have been two that needed to be seen.
I'm lost as to where the suspense was.
Further, how come the main skinny character never ended in the hospital? He should have died several times but no one felt a need to get him fixed.
Poorly written and thought out. No character allowed to grow and become. I'm giving it a 1 because I did manage to finish it. I wouldn't recommend it unless the library was closed and you were deathly bored.

The main male character ,Francis, is awfully dumb. He drove me crazy right to the end and the side story of him and his daughter was totally unnecessary and added nothing to the book. Don't waste your time reading the book!

Pretty unbelievable and it's obvious that the book was written by a woman because the guy who's the main character says and does things that I don't think are typical of men. It had a good twist and all, but for the most part, meh.

The overall story of Lucas' death and Sam's silence is compelling, but I agree with Young Bob's analysis that Francis bore the startling ability to display a bifurcated talent; inept and weak one moment and indomitable the next. Francis also displayed a remarkable aptitude for getting answers from people who had no reason to comply with his demands. My complaint however, is the ending of the book. Again, Francis probes for resolution and his questions draw an unexpected realization from his mother - twenty-three years after the incident. Really now. There is an absurdity in the final disclosure and the mother's ability to recall events that never before occurred to her. Four starts for the story, knocked down to three for the incomprehensible ending.

A page-turner; this novel of suspense is thrilling as well as very funny. The protagonist, who narrates, is a "hot mess" as Ms. Joseph says in a Q&A in back of the book: running up and down stairs because he is claustrophobic in elevators, running from one location to another on foot or by car, running from all relationships at the same time he tries to hug them to himself. The other characters are well developed even though it is our hot mess who describes them and their actions to us. I am very glad to have read this book. I chose it based on the review in the Feb. 5 '17 issue of the Washington Post.

I was given an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an independent review.
Listed as a thriller and with excellent reviews, I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed. There is a missing boy and the characters in this story were all 'involved' (directly or indirectly) in the incident of a young boy drowning 23 years ago, which was ruled as a tragic accident.
Lots of bad feelings and unresolved emotions, most of the characters have not been able to fully move on. The story alternates between the two time lines.
The characters are somewhat complicated and the story is well written but for me just lacked the pace and the little something that makes you rush to get to the end of the book. A little bit far fetched in places.
3***

This book could have been so much better. The only good thing about it was the hook. From the beginning I had to know what had happened, first to Lucas, then to Matthew, so I was forced to read it through to the end. Nothing connected in a plausible way. The characters went completely undeveloped, as well as the relationships between them. At times, I was just bewildered, wondering why the author would create these stretches in plot points without taking the time to develop and make sense of it. Spoilers… things that make no sense;
1. Francis’s supposed debilitating phobias, that do nothing to slow him down during the investigative process.
2. Why is Francis even investigating? The mother comes and points a gun at him, accusing him of helping to abduct her son, then begs him to help her? She’s suspicious enough of him to break in and hold him at gunpoint, but as soon as he tells her he doesn’t know anything, suddenly she expects that he is going to help her, that in fact, he’s her best chance, and that he’s actually obligated, even though her husband appears to be responsible for the death of his brother? So then he throws his whole life into it, despite the fact that his daughter is moving in with him that very day. Then he just goes about it while completely ignoring his 15 year old daughter coming from out of state? He doesn’t even pick her up from the airport because he’s busy?
3. Why does he even have a 15 year old daughter? At one point there’s a reference to his brother being killed 20 years ago, which means he’s currently 33, which means he had her when he was 18, yet, he also went to a four year college, while he’s completely estranged from his parents, and battling severe PTSD. Yeah, it could happen, but tell the story. And, piecing it together from different parts of the book, their daughter is 13 when they divorce, but they were married 9 years. Again, it could happen, but tell the story!
4. Why does everyone talk to Francis like he is an investigator, not even questioning why he’s involved?
5. Why does his father keep cash, an address book and coffee shop receipts hidden under the dresser? Sure, the cash and address book make sense. But the receipts?
6. When Francis finds his fathers cabin in the woods it looks like no one’s been there for 20 years, but then he finds a weird secret room with recent photos of Sam and Matthew. Why is there a secret room in a secret cabin? And why is everything untouched except for in the secret room? And why are there lots of condoms and psych books in the nightstand? A prelude to his fathers psychologist girlfriend? But at the same time an indication that this has been his fathers love nest for mistresses since before his brother ever died. Completely weird element. Could have been tied in so much better.
7. Why is Alex’s psychologist girlfriend conducting secret hypnosis experiments after hours in her office? Hypnosis is not as scandalous as all that. Nor is it dangerous in the way it’s portrayed, like Alex is afraid to let his family near it… would they be accidentally hypnotized if they knew he was into that? So, so weird.
8. Why would Francis even try to break into the girlfriends office to find notes about his father, assuming they would be there since she indicated that they weren’t on the computer in her hospital office? Why would she even offer that? Such a reach to try to tie in this element of the story.
9. Why is the revelatory information Francis realizes under hypnosis, that the cop from his brothers death has the tattoo that Sam saw on a guy that, almost, beat him up several years ago? Well, obviously that means that cop must have been the kidnapper, right? So obvious. /s. And why would a cop, who is supposedly so torn up by the death of a kid, turn around and stuff another kid into another hidden room, to be left for dead?
10. Why is the hypno girlfriend ultimately the one who goes with Francis to save the day? This would have been a great opportunity for an invested partner - maybe Cam, or even Amy, maybe even Alex? If the author had even attempted to develop any of those relationships in the story.
11. And then it’s a whole other unimportant sidekick who helps him uncover the truth about his brother. By going to confront his mother, who was seriously involved with his high school classmate, all while continuing a 20+ year affair with Sams dad. Why did she need to be dating his classmate? Again, so weird. Not to mention that there are several references to local classmates, even though he had supposedly been sent to boarding school when his parents couldn’t get their shit together. Oh - and they were wealthy enough to own a beautiful home in an “upper middle class neighborhood,” plus a secret cabin, plus send their kid to boarding school, on a cops salary.
12. And WTF is up with the little detour about the pedophile principal?

So little thought went into connecting the dots in this story, and so little time spent developing the characters and relationships. It could have been so much better. So many unnecessary elements, and so much watering down of the points that mattered to the story.