Marni Scofidio

Reed Ivory is living his somewhat solitary life in Santa Monica when he receives a call from a police detective in Wales. She informs him that his sister, Kate, has been reported missing. He immediately informs his housekeeper, Mrs. Lucky, that he has to leave right away. Reed makes custom guitars and has a very important commission coming up, but he's desperate to find his sister.

Reed and his sister have a very complicated backstory. The events in the book start out in 1992, so the siblings, who are at that point in their 50s, were born just before and during WWII. Kate has a different father, and their Welsh mother met Reed's father when he was stationed there during the war. The family then moves to New York, where Reed and Kate spend most of their childhood. Their abusive father is out of the picture during their childhood and their mother remarries a kind man named Gus. Unfortunately, both Gus and their mother were recently killed in a car accident. This proves, however, to be just the catalyst Kate needs to leave her own abusive husband and leave Wales for sunny California where Reed will help her and her two children get settled.

Once Reed arrives, he begins to suspect his sister's husband, Lewis, of having something to do with her disappearance. The police aren't too interested in investigating, despite the fact that another local man, Jimmy, is also missing (Lewis claims the pair ran off together) and that there is no detective who works for them with the name Reed gives them as the one who informed him of his sister's disappearance. Reed's short stay to visit his sister eventually stretches out so long he leaves the B&B where he's staying and rents a place, determined not to leave until he finds out what happened to Kate. He eventually hires a private detective, Dana Spatafora. Dana is also a coach for the local women's rugby team.

While the book was well-written, there were some things that were confusing. Reed variously claims to be Welsh (since he was born there and apparently also has a UK passport), and from California and/or New York, depending on who is asking. The book really drags in the middle, with not much happening to solve the mystery or advance the story. The reader gets a long introduction to women's rugby that seems to have nothing to do with anything much. There are also some very strange claims, such as "only children eat white bread in the US" and "there are only two flavors of potato chips in the US." (?) There are also people playing sudoku in the early 1990s and a grandmother who apparently couldn't remember how to pronounce her granddaughter's name after 4 months apart (the grandmother wasn't senile or anything). I also wondered about the 8 year old girl who was 5 feet tall and apparently that was her final height (or close to it). And the bog snorkelers who'd been coming to the area for "30 years" when the "sport" wasn't even invented until the late 1970s. And the only "foreign" food Reed could eat was Chinese, yet he has a favorite Mexican restaurant. Also the fact that Reed spoke to his sister on the telephone every other Sunday, yet when the police ask when he last talked to her, it had been three months (which he apparently thought nothing of until the call informing him she was missing). I must admit, it was hard to follow the story with so many oddities popping up all over the place. The story was all wrapped up in the final few chapters but by then I had somewhat lost interest in what had happened to poor Kate amidst all the other chaos!… (plus d'informations)

This was my 2nd encounter with Marni Scofidio and her Ffrynt Trilogy which I managed to start at book 2 but no matter. Although I can see no link between the two books in terms of their plots I may be missing something though of course both are set in the same Welsh village.
As with book 2 this starts with a gripping chapter that got me invested and from there on in Scofidio weaves her masterly, or should that be mistressfully, prose to keep you turning the pages and uncovering new links and the odd red herring. That her two protagonists in this tale are both damaged women is to be applauded and the chemistry she details in their befriending and eventual friendship is done so well that you hardly notice what is happening.
Soon this develops into a tense page turner with real jeopardy at its heart.
I have recommended this to a few people as a xmas stocking filler. Another winner from this writer and I look forward to book 3.… (plus d'informations)

Having enjoyed the previous book in this series, I was really expecting to like this one as well. Unfortunately it just didn't work for me at all and I found myself constantly bogged down by confusing details and timelines. This book has an incredibly strange relationship with time - sometimes you'll be reading about the same day for what feels like ages, then suddenly you turn the page and it is months or years later but somehow the characters don't seem to have done much of anything, despite the high stakes of the story. I also found the ultimate conclusion of the mystery to be quite unsatisfying - it wraps up with exactly the answers you would have assumed were coming. Perhaps I'm too big a fan of thrillers for this type of ending, I wanted any kind of a twist or surprise but was left feeling underwhelmed.… (plus d'informations)