Bring Her Home
In the breathtaking new thriller from David Bell, bestselling author of Since She Went Away and Somebody I Used to Know, the fate of two missing teenage girls becomes a father’s worst nightmare.... Just a year and a half after the tragic death of his wife, Bill Price’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Summer, and her best friend, Haley, disappear. Days later, the girls are found in a city park. Haley is dead at the scene, while Summer is left beaten beyond recognition and clinging to life. As Bill holds vigil over Summer’s bandaged body, the only sound the unconscious girl can make is one cryptic and chilling word: No. And the more time Bill spends with Summer, the more he wonders what happened to her. Or if the injured girl in the hospital bed is really his daughter at all. When troubling new questions about Summer’s life surface, Bill is not prepared for the aftershocks. He’ll soon discover that both the living and the dead have secrets. And that searching for the truth will tear open old wounds that pierce straight to the heart of his family...
David Bell is a great author who has a strong repertoire of work to back up his writing talent. In this book, he continues to show off those skills with a twisting plot and a mysterious story line of what happened to two teenage girls.
The story moves very slowly and drops breadcrumbs of hints along the way to a satisfying conclusion. There are some obvious plot points that you should see coming a mile away and if you read enough mysteries you won’t be overly shocked at who the villain turns out to be because Bell provides some pretty strong indications early on. However that doesn’t mean you still shouldn’t give this book a shot because it becomes more about how he is going to unwind the story. He drops so many clues throughout that SOMETHING bad happened your attention is hooked through the end so you can find out what and why even if you already know the who. The last clues to the motivation of the crime won’t even be revealed until nearly the end so make sure to stick with it to get the whole picture.
It reminded me of some episodes I had seen in CSI or CSI Criminal Intent where you know who did it right when the episode started but the motivation is strung out through the episode. Those worked because it’s basic human nature to want to know the why; we aren’t content with just hearing that someone died and someone killed them. That is the crux in a jury trial and what lawyers are always trying to convey to the jury in order to free their client or punish the alleged criminal – juries need to know WHY it was done in order to make a decision of innocence or guilt. If you keep that in mind when you read this book, even if you discover the who early on, then your attention won’t waver as your need to discover the why clicks in.
Bell’s character development is thorough as you’ll both hate and emphasize with the characters throughout the story depending upon the scenes, settings and how much information you’ve garnered about them. It’s easy to think that any of us would behave differently in similar circumstances, a point the father Bill even brings up to a detective, reminding us until you’re actually going through those emotions it’s best not to judge. If you’re a parent, get ready for some of your worst fears to be brought to the surface.
His writing flows so well you’ll find yourself flipping through chapters without realizing how far you’ve read in your quest to discover the answers. It doesn’t help that nearly every chapter has cliffhanger like qualities at its conclusion forcing you to keep reading because no one likes to stop when new information has just been dangled in front of their attention span like meat before a dog.
Get ready to set some time aside so you can binge your way through this and discover how evil humanity can become when it feels threatened.
Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for allowing me to review this book.
*synopsis and pic from netgalley.com