The mother-daughter relationship can be fraught, especially when the parent is a worrier and the grown child wants to establish her independence. This family bond is at the heart of this novel.
*****
Katrina (Kat) McHugh......
......and her lookalike daughter Cleo, a student at New York University, have had a tense relationship for months.
The rift occurred when Kat broke up Cleo's relationship with her drug-dealing boyfriend Kyle, a 'bad boy' Cleo met at college.
In an effort to mend fences, Kat beseeches her daughter to come to dinner, and Cleo reluctantly agrees. However, when Cleo arrives at the family home in Brooklyn, she finds a blackened pot sizzling on the hot stove; chicken burning in the oven; and Kat's bloody shoe under the sofa.
In short, Kat is missing, and it looks like she was suddenly abducted.
Cleo calls her dad, documentary filmmaker Aiden McHugh, who's just getting off a plane.....and they inform the police.
The cops arrive to take pictures, swab for DNA, and lift fingerprints, and Detective Wilson - a no-nonsense woman in charge of the investigation - urges Kat and Aiden to stay calm and optimistic.
The rest of the book alternates between two timelines: Kat's narrative, starting eight days before her disappearance; and Cleo's story, describing what she does to help find her mother.
In Kat's chapters we learn that she's an attorney at a classy law firm called Blair, Stevenson, which represents high power corporate clients.
Blair, Stevenson is currently defending Darden Pharmaceuticals, which makes a seizure medication called Xytek. A lawsuit alleges that Darden knew of and disregarded Xytek's risks to pregnant patients and their unborn children, and Kat is working on the case.
To complicate matters, Kat - who's in the midst of divorcing her cheating husband Aiden - is dating Doug Sinclair, who happens to be a senior executive at Darden Pharmaceuticals. Fraternizing with a client is a no-no, but Kat figures no one has to find out......until a tragic incident occurs.
In the midst of all this turmoil, Kat suspects Cleo is secretly back with drug dealer Kyle, and she takes additional steps to terminate the association.
In Cleo's sections, she admits to feeling guilty about being estranged from her mother. Cleo decides to search for Kat herself, and in furtherance of this goal, Cleo finds her mother's diaries. These describe Kat's terrible childhood in a group home, and a crime that occurred there.
Cleo also finds Kat's personal computer, with messages from men on dating sites. Cleo withholds all this information from Detective Wilson, and follows up these 'clues' herself.
For me, this part of the book stretches credulity too much. Firstly, only in fiction would a college student - whose mother has disappeared - withhold important information from the authorities. Moreover, each time Cleo tracks down a person of interest, they immediately confide important information......and even offer to help her. This just seems a bit too convenient.
Despite my reservations, the book is a compelling thriller, with the appropriate red herrings and surprise twists. One minor story thread remains unresolved at the end of the book, but this may have been deliberate on the part of the author.
All in all, I'd mildly recommend the book to mystery fans.
Thanks to Netgalley, Kimberly McCreight, and Knopf for a copy of the book.
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