Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

 

Eleven years ago, a peaceful community was rocked by a series of disappearances.  Shelby Tebow was a brand new mother, her baby only a few months old.  She went out for an evening run and didn't return.  Several weeks later, Meredith Dickey and her six year old daughter, Delilah, disappeared.  Meredith was a birth doula and Shelby had been one of her clients.  Were their disappearances linked somehow?

Shelby was later discovered half buried in a remote woodland location, her nude body bruised and battered.  Meredith was found later in a disreputable motel, her death ruled a suicide.  In the note she left, she told her husband not to look for Delilah because he would never find her.  Josh is left to raise their son, Leo, by himself, wondering forever what happened to Meredith to cause her to bring such horror into their family.  Shelby's husband, Jason, was convicted of her murder and is now in prison.

Then everything is brought back to light.  A teenage girl escaped from captors and identifies herself as Delilah.  That six year old girl is now seventeen.  She tells a tale of being kept in captivity, in a basement with no light ever and another captured child, Gus, her only company.  Somehow she finds a way to escape after all the years of captivity and is now home.  Can she supply the answers that have been left behind by the deaths of the two women?

Mary Kubica is known as a suspense writer.  She has written many bestsellers and this book sold over a million copies.  I read a ton of thrillers but this managed to surprise me.  As the secrets emerge with the return of Delilah, everything comes clear but with a shock to the reader.  The reader learns about the lives of the women who disappeared and the lives of those left behind like spouses, children and friends.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.