It's Parents Weekend at California's Santa Clara University (SCU), and activities are planned for students and their folks.
The freshman dorms break residents into small units, called capstone groups, and SCU plans a restaurant dinner for each capstone group and their parents.
The five members of one of the capstone groups in Campisi Hall have become close friends who sometimes hang out together. Their out-of-town parents all make it to the group dinner, but the kids themselves are no-shows, and the five freshman are soon declared missing persons.
The missing students are:
Blane Roosevelt
Blane Roosevelt's parents are divorced. His mom Cynthia is the Assistant Secretary of State, and always travels with a security detail. His dad Hank is a writer.
*****
Mark Wong
Mark's mother is deceased and his father is an ex-convict predator who groomed and molested teenage girls on the swim team he coached. Mark and his father are estranged.
*****
Stella Maldonado
Stella's dad David - a serial philanderer - is a successful plastic surgeon and her mom Nina is a yoga instructor. David was recently caught canoodling with his anesthesiologist, and both Stella and Nina are furious with him.
*****
Libby Akana
Libby's dad Ken is the chief judge of the L.A. Superior Court and her mom Amy is a lawyer. Amy became a stay-at-home-mom when Libby's little brother Timmy got cancer.
*****
Felix Goffman
Felix's dad is out of the picture and his mom Alice works for SCU, as the secretary to Dean Pratt. Alice struggles financially, but her job allows Felix to attend school tuition-free.
*****
Once the capstone group freshmen become official missing persons, the campus police, Santa Clara police, and FBI all get involved. One of the FBI agents is Sarah Keller, who we first met in Alex Finlay's book, The Night Shift. Sarah was pregnant with twins at that time, and her kids are now nine years old.
Sadly, SCU recently experienced another misfortune, when a freshman called Natasha Belov got trapped in a cave near the beach and drowned. The missing capstone kids escalate the tension at SCU, and their vanishing really alarms the school community.
The book is composed of short chapters that detail the police investigation and sequentially highlight one family group at a time - so although there are a large number of characters - it's fairly easy to keep them straight.
As the narrative proceeds, many secrets emerge, including philandering; drug use; student pranks; student crushes; theft; etc. There are also rumors; assaults; frat parties; and internet trolling. So there's plenty going on, and an action-packed climax.
The story held my attention, and I was interested in the characters, and curious to see what the ultimate outcome would be. That said, there are implausible elements in the novel, and very few of the protagonists are actually likable.
Nonetheless, this is a passable mystery book, worth a few hours reading.
Thanks to Netgalley, Alex Finlay, and Minotaur Books for a copy of the book.
Rating: 3 stars
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