Jason tells the police he had arrived home from work that night to discover Sandra missing. Their small home is unusual in that it is protected by steel doors and protective bars at all the windows. The bedroom reveals a broken lamp and a missing quilt; however there is no evidence of a forced entry, no bloodshed. Sandra's purse, clothing, and car are all still there.

Sgt. D.D. Warren, who fans will remember from the prior novel Hide, responds to the call. Unfortunately for Jason, he admittedly waited three hours before notifying the police, which casts him in a very poor light from the beginning. Jason shows himself to be unusually protective and caring of their daughter, but emotionless and cold toward everyone and everything else. Only what is in plain view is available to D.D. and her cohort Miller, as Jason refuses access to computers and all other data without a warrant.

D.D. concludes Jason has a lot to hide and is further persuaded when she discovers his net assets exceed four million dollars without being able to discover how the wealth was acquired. Meanwhile, Jason is close to panic until he is able to smuggle his laptop out under the scrutiny of the police stationed at his curbside, and hide it in the offices of the newspaper.

Down the street, neighbor Aidan Brewster is also in a panic when he sees the police cars. He is gainfully employed in the neighborhood car repair shop as a mechanic. He is a backroom employee only, who has much to hide from both co-workers and the public. He is a registered sex offender having served time for the statutory rape of his stepsister. Aidan is in the rehab program where he has weekly mandatory group counseling sessions and routine polygraph tests that he must clear. He knows that he will become an immediate suspect once the police become aware of his existence.

The story starts slowly as the author takes plenty of time to create her incredibly complex principal characters. The plot progresses in four voices; that of Jason Jones, Sgt. D.D. Warren, Aidan Brewster and the missing and presumed dead Sandra Jones through the vehicle of backflashes to her youth.

Sandra is certainly not the most sympathetic of victims. She is the product of an extremely dysfunctional family and a victim of her mother Munchausen syndrome and there are veiled allusions to trouble with her overachieving attorney father. A pregnancy and abortion before age 16 and an advocate of the wild side of life made Sandra an unlikely candidate to become the mother she has proved to be. To the world, the Jones family is a perfect one, and Aidan Brewster is an extremely quiet, normal man who is a competent mechanic.

This thriller is very different from the formulaic stories one is accustomed to reading. It is character driven and so well done that after each point of view, you become certain you understand what happened, until the next point of view. This suspense is unrelenting as more and more is revealed about Aidan and Jason, the principal "persons of interest" and Sandra. Other principals are introduced who contribute to the reader's education of sex offender programs, pedophilia, and internet crime as this sinewy story twists to its unexpected conclusion.

Incredibly, Lisa Gardner attains a higher degree of originality with each succeeding novel.

--Thea Davis