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This is my second Marybeth Mayhew Whalen book that I've enjoyed. She's a gifted writer who puts a lot of feeling into her stories.

In 1985 in a small-town in North Carolina an 11 year old boy named Davy Malcor went missing. Now over 20 years later his jacket is found in an old abandoned shed. The police once again begin to search for his possible remains. The story goes back to that fateful night but also jumps to the present (2006) to the lives of the people that were most affected by his disappearance. His grief-stricken mother Tabitha, his older brother Thaddeus who was in charge of him that night, Anissa, a girl who he was with that same night, and a mysterious man named Gordon Swift. In between their stories we get "snippets" from a best-selling memoir that Thaddeus wrote in 2005 about his missing brother.

I listened to this audio and the narrators were perfect for the story. A little over half way through I also received a digital copy so I began to read as I listened.

This story is told slowly and it works quite well. There's a mystery to what really happened that terrible night that kept me listening and turning those pages quickly. This was an emotional read that left me somewhat forlorn at the end.

I'd like to kindly thank NetGalley and Harper Muse for the Advanced Listening Copy and the Advance Reader's Copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

Published October 1, 2024