This one kept me guessing until the end. Let’s review.
Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
- Category – Adult Crime Suspense
- Length – 356 Pages
- Read Time – 20 Days
- GR Rating – 3 Stars
This is one of those books where everyone is keeping secrets & while these secrets don’t necessarily directly correlate, they’re ultimately all connected on one string of disastrous events. A little slow in the middle but a complicated tale of deception is woven.
Starting off with a wife, Shelby, taking a late night jog, violently abducted, but was she really out in the middle of the night for a jog? No. Who’s likely to become suspect numero uno when it’s discovered said wife was actually out for a clandestine rendezvous & not an innocent night-time jog. However, when another woman, Meredith, disappears without a trace, a mere two-weeks later along with her young daughter Delilah, the community begins to suspect something much more sinister may be happening. Unfortunately for the loved ones of all missing parties, both investigations run cold, leaving the shattered families & community at large without answers for 11 long years.
Shelby was sending & receiving secret texts from her lover right under her husbands’ nose, carrying on an extramarital affair & now she’s gone. Meredith was receiving anonymous texts threatening to reveal something from her past, something unsavory enough to have Meredith spooked & nervously looking over her shoulder at ever turn. How are these disappearances connected? Are these womens’ secrets connected, or just coincidence that they were both keeping unsavory secrets close to the chest.
Eleven years after the disappearances of Shelby, Meredith & 6 year old Delilah, Delilah reappears. Disheveled, confused & unable to tell investigators much of anything other than that she has been held captive by a couple in a small room, without adequate food or care, all these years. The community is left shocked & confused. Who has been holding Delilah captive all this time? Why? & what, if anything, does Delilah know of her mother disappearance?
Throughout the story we’re switching between the perspectives of several characters, past & present, so it does get a bit confusing, there’s a lot going on. None of the characters were particularly likable & this is also where I feel the story started to get a little slow & uninteresting. One of those unlikable characters being Leo, Delilah’s brother who doubts this reappeared girl is actually his sister, despite what the alleged results of a DNA test say. Leo feels like he’d know, have an instant feeling connecting him to his sister & simply doesn’t with this girl. I do extend grace to Leo’s character because he lost his mother & sister at a very young age, he’s been raised by a man who lost his wife & daughter, in a home weighed down by the dark cloud of mourning & the uncertainty of not knowing. He’s also a little distracted by the apparently romantic relationship brewing between his father & the detective investigating Delilah’s return.
Ultimately though, the plot strings are brought together & the puzzle pieces of the past start to fall into place. Some of the drama kind of felt like distractions to me, not really essential to the main plot of the story. While I often like the ‘side quests’ within stories because they fill the world that was created for said story & help to establish a full picture, sometimes they just read as obvious red herrings & unfortunately that’s how much of this book read to me. I couldn’t figure out how the puzzle pieces fit together not because the mystery was so great but because so much of it was beside the fact. In the end Delilah is found alive, having been just steps away from her own home & remaining family the entire time. The perpetrator of her disappearance, another community member, sent to prison. Very much a neatly wrapped happy ending, we find out what happened to Shelby & Meredith, who the culprits were, how the events transpired & Delilah is back with her family, safe.
Rated 3 stars because although I felt like most of the book sidetracked around the plot it was still a good enough read. As always, thank you for joining me for another review & happy reading!
Hasta la próxima – V
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