The Mystery Starts Here

This is one of the best suspense novels I’ve read in a long time.  I read it almost all the way through without stopping and would have expect for those pesky things like cooking dinner, walking the dogs and…sleeping! From the opening sentence, I was hooked.

“I’ve always wondered what people felt like in the final few hours of their lives.”

The narrator, Sandra Jones, a young mother, wife and teacher, continues to describe her normal evening up till she’s in bed and then, she hears a noise in the hall and… he steps into the room.She doesn’t scream – she doesn’t want to wait her daughter.  Do you have shivers yet? I sure did. From there the story jumps to Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren of the Boston Police Department who is assign to a missing persons case – yup, Sandy Jones. D.D. goes to the Joneses house and is struck by how normal it is….almost staged. Not too messy, not too neat. She’s puzzled that the Jason Jones waited almost three hours before calling the police. He is a devoted father to his four-year-old daughter, Ree, a precocious  little cutey. The young couple don’t have friends or relatives. They go to work, take care of their child and are….normal. Or are they? We know right away that Jason has secrets, bad ones.

From there the book is told in alternating voices: D.D., Jason, Sandy’s  emotionally cold husband, a neighbor and several other minor players. When Jason is confronted in his backyard by Aiden Brewster, the neighbor, the man tells him he heard a car by the Jones’ house in the middle of the night. Jason is suspicious of the man – was his wife having an affair with Aiden? They are close to the same age and live only a few houses apart. Aiden warn Jason that the cops will be looking at him. After all, isn’t it usually the husband who did it?

There are so many twists and turns in the book that it leaves you breathless. So many possibilities – so many suspects. Both Sandy and Jason have secrets in their pasts, and Gardner teases us throughout the book, only letting a little out at a time until – well, you just cannot put the book down. While I thought the ending was a bit rushed, it was still satisfying because all or most of the loose ends were neatly tied up. Is there a happy ending? You’ll have to get a copy of the book to find out! I’m not telling!