Review: Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

Title: Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
Publisher: Park Row
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 352 pages
Book Rating:

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.

People don’t just disappear without a trace…

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find…

Review:

Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica is a stunning page-turner.

Eleven years ago, Shelby and Jason Tebow are new to the neighborhood and the parents of a newborn baby. One, evening, Shelby goes out late at night for a jog and fails to return home. Days later, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter Delilah inexplicably vanish.  Next door neighbors Kate and Bea rally around Josh Dickey as they join the search for his missing wife and daughter. Kate stumbles onto what she believes might be the answer to Meredith’s disappearance. Will her theory prove to be right?

In the present, a young woman escapes from the kidnappers who have kept her in their basement for years. After devising a plan to gain her freedom, she manages to flee from her captors. Although she has very few memories of her life before her kidnapping, she does know her name.

Josh and his now teenage son Leo have not moved in the years since Delilah vanished. Josh never gives up hope she will be found and he investigates every suspected sighting.  Always a quiet child, Leo continues to remain silent about what happens in his life. He is also very resentful about Josh’s neglect over the years. When the detective who has long worked on Delilah’s case calls him, Josh is afraid of what she is going to tell. He and Leo get the shock of their lives when it is good news. But Leo soon begins to have doubts about this latest development.

Weaving back and forth in time, Local Woman Missing is a compelling mystery that is told from varying perspectives. The storyline is gripping and the suburban neighborhood is the perfect setting for this suspenseful story.  The various characters are fully developed and some of them are hiding juicy secrets. With the tension rising with each chapter, Mary Kubica brings this riveting mystery to an unpredictable, jaw-dropping conclusion. I highly recommend this thrilling mystery to fans of the genre.