Fragile
Search in google:
Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case—and also dangerous. Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene’s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father. “I know how a moment can spiral out of control,” Jones says to a shocked Maggie as he searches Rick’s room for incriminating evidence. “How the consequences of one careless action can cost you everything.”As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret—one that could destroy everything she holds dear. This thrilling novel about one community’s intricate yet fragile bonds will leave readers asking, How well do I know the people I love? and How far would I go to protect them?From the Hardcover edition.Library JournalTwenty years ago, the murder of a young girl shook a small town in New York. Her classmates, now adults with children the age of the victim, are chilled when another girl, Charlene, disappears. The incident revives old fears, as some of the town's residents never believed the right man was convicted of the crime. The murderer must be someone they know, as both disappearances took place without anyone ever reporting having seen a stranger. In Unger's latest novel (after Black Out), psychologist Maggie Cooper and her police detective husband, Jones, work to discover the truth, as their wayward teenaged son, Ricky, having dated Charlene, is now a suspect. VERDICT The compelling and true-to-life characters make this a great choice for mystery and suspense fans. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/10.]—Linda Oliver, Colorado Springs
