When a child goes missing, an unfathomable nightmare begins for a family, the community and the police. Yet, we have a bizarre fascination with these events as evidenced by the upsurge in true crime media. It seems people can’t get enough of podcasts, TV shows, movies and books.

Although some of this story has the feel of a whodunnit and what happened, at its core it’s about the forever toll a child gone missing takes on families and neighbors. It weakens faith in home as a place of safety. What piqued my interest in this novel is how characters with different kinds of involvement weathered the loss. 

The book has a dual timeline. We learn directly about the night of the disappearance but most of the story is about what happens twenty years later when the cold case is reopened. The focus is on the mother, the brother, a girl who may have witnessed something, and a man falsely accused.

The story: 

Davy Malcor, is an 11 year old, so obsessed with Back to the Future, he never wants to take off the Marty McFly jacket his mother made him for his birthday. He has an older brother, 15 year old Thaddeus called TJ, and a four year old baby sister.

His mother, Tabitha, is worn out and is looking forward to going to a party as an escape for all the demands of housewife and mother. The plan is for TJ to babysit.

But he has other ideas. His friends are going to play night games and possibly drink beer. TJ doesn’t want to miss out on this and with some fibbing, talks his parents into letting him go. They agree to let him go for an hour if he takes Davy with him and promises to watch out for him. A young neighbor agrees to come over to watch the baby. Tabitha, the mother, is reluctant but her husband thinks it is okay. She really needs this night out and, perhaps against her better judgment, agrees.

TJ is embarrassed by his kid brother but also by the jacket. He wants to be with his friends and not with his dorky brother. He meets up with them and tells Davy to leave them alone. Davy leaves, never to be seen again. Thus the beginning of sustained trauma.

Fast forward twenty years when the telltale jacket is found and the family and town relive the tragedy and media frenzy once again. 

The four characters who were most affected by Davy’s loss are at its center.

The mother, Tabitha, lives with the guilt of having chosen to go to that party. She works for victims’ rights. Held together with band aids. Davy’s loss has affected her relationship with her other children and she is now divorced.  Every Friday for each of those twenty something years, she sits at her kitchen table making a list of regrets. omitting the biggest one of all.

As the police and community search for Davy, her life becomes a deju vu with media, police, neighbors dropping off food. Only this time, she is worn out and has no hope. She has developed a reserve that isn’t easily penetrated. As the book progresses, you can see her slowly opening herself to the people around her.

TJ, now Thaddeus, has written a best-selling memoir about Davy that omits and distorts the truths he cannot face. He travels the country doing book signings. With each reading he relives that night. He runs from his family and any relationships that might have meaning.

Thaddeus is an interesting character. He has made the disappearance his life’s work and yet what he feels and what really happened is not part of the book he promotes. He knows he is responsible for what happened to his brother and as long as he is on the run, he will remain damaged. How he begins to shed his armor is crucial for his future.

I would preferred to have read rather than listened to the audio. The reader interpreted Thaddeus as unlikable, terse. Almost like a short tempered, sulky teen. If the reader was to have any sympathy for the burden Thaddeus was carrying, the tone should been more nuanced. Instead, he sounded like an irritated, immature child rather than the broken man he was.

Anissa Weaver was a child herself when Davy went missing. She was the last to see Davy but wasn’t exactly sure what she saw. She cannot reveal her past connection because she is now a public information officer assigned to stay at the Malcor house to manage the aggressive media.

Annissa’s conflict didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. It was a weak link. What she witnessed that night would not have had any bearing on her job with the police. Had she told her chief the truth, I doubt he would have objected to her staying with the family to keep the media out. Also, her reaching out to Gordon seemed a bit flighty if she was so worried about her job.

Gordon Swift, probably the most sympathetic character, has had his life derailed by the suspicion that he was responsible for Davy’s disappearance. He has tried to put the harassment behind him and lives a quiet, isolated life as sculptor and teacher but now that the case is reopened all the vitriol against him rises up again.

Gordon was a sad victim. Mob accusation comes so easily without evidence. Twenty years later, suspicion still falls on him. One thing that made no sense to me was him befriending a young boy during the investigation. I know it was probably used to throw more suspicion on him but it seemed gratuitous. And something he would never due at this particular moment given the way his character was developed.

While there were some things that did not make a lot of sense to me including the flat ending (when the crime is solved), overall it is worth reading. If only to spend time with fictional characters who are unable to overcome their grief and loss until they look at it head on. That is the only chance at recovery. 

Maybe we can all learn something from that.

Marybeth Mayhew Whelan has written 9 previous novels.. She is the co-founder of The Book Tide, an online community of readers.