About This Book
When two detectives appear at Erika Cass's door asking about a missing teenage girl, her carefully constructed suburban life begins to unravel. Her son Liam was the last person to see the girl alive — and Erika has long sensed something off beneath his polished, perfect surface. McFadden puts a mother in an impossible position: the evidence is damning, but so is the alternative. What would you do if the person you love most might be capable of the worst?
McFadden's real skill here is psychological claustrophobia. The narrative stays locked inside a mother's perspective, which means readers experience the same desperate rationalizations, the same lurching between denial and dread. The plot moves fast — this is a propulsive page-turner — but what lingers is the moral discomfort of watching a good person make increasingly questionable choices. It's less a whodunit than a study in how far parental love can bend before it breaks.
