REVIEW: MISSING PIECES, BY HEATHER GUDENKAUF

 

 

An unexpected phone call turns the lives of Jack and Sarah Quinlan upside down. Their twin daughters, Emma and Elizabeth, are away at college, so they are able to quickly arrange to leave their home in Larkspur, Montana, and to fly to Penny Gate, Iowa.

Jack’s Aunt Julia has taken a bad fall and is in critical condition. Soon, they learn that there is more to the story, and that Julia’s accident might not have been accidental.

But just when Sarah thinks she knows everything about her husband’s family, pieces of a strangely convoluted puzzle begin to fall into place, and she is forced to face that her husband has kept many secrets and told numerous lies. Why did Jack say that his parents died in a car accident, when in actuality, his mother had been murdered and his father, missing, was presumed to be the killer?

Meeting all the family members again, especially after the reporter part of Sarah’s personality leads her to the files from the case of Lydia Tierney, Jack’s mother, and more questions arise, she is also stunned to realize that Celia, married to Jack’s cousin Dean, was his serious girlfriend when they were teenagers. Another lie of omission.

So many suspects for both murders, like Amy, a troubled young woman and Jack’s sister; Dean, the angry cousin; and possibly even Jack. So who could have brought such violence into their lives?

When a series of threatening e-mails addressed to Sarah arrive, and the IP address is somewhere in Penny Gate, the threat becomes startlingly close to home. As the danger ratcheted up, it looked like nobody would walk away alive.

I was stunned by the denouement, as I had my eye on one particular suspect all along…and I was wrong. But I actually liked how it turned out, as the guilty character was very annoying. But what would happen to them all after the Missing Pieces are put together? Could they survive the emotional trauma? Definitely a 5 star read.

***My copy of an e-ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley.