The Undercurrent

This book by Sarah Sawyer kept me going to find out what lay at the bottom of the disappearance in 1987 of a 12-year old girl. It's 2011 and new mother Bee, who was just a couple years older than the missing girl, lived in the neighborhood where the girl disappeared; she comes to suspect that her estranged twin brother's best friend, Leo, was somehow involved. But the real tension in the story comes from her twin's disappearance from her life. It eventually comes clear why he has cut off his family, but in the intervening 15 years or so, Bee has tortured herself over this. The story is told from the perspectives of Bee, her mother at the time of the disappearance, and Leo's mother, also in 1987.

Library Journal summarizes the plot as follows: "When new mother Bee's childhood crush and neighbor Leo contacts her to tell her that her estranged twin, Gus, wants to see her, Bee travels from Maine back to her Texas home. She's seeking reconciliation and answers for why Gus vanished from her life." They go on to say that "The leisurely paced writing is oblique, with the plot unfolding slowly from different directions, coming into focus in the latter part of the novel." Publishers Weekly is considerably more positive in their review, concluding "Sawyer constructs a spellbinding mystery as she toggles between timelines and the viewpoints of three very different mothers." Similarly, Booklist sees "Sawyer's debut is a gripping and emotional domestic suspense novel that explores the complex trials and tribulations of motherhood from three female perspectives."

The NewYork Times says, "On the surface, the book follows the well-worn fictional path along which troubled young adults return to their hometowns to look anew at mysteries from their childhoods. But this is less a criminal investigation than a layered excavation of family secrets, misconceptions and the extreme measures mothers will take to protect their children....The novel features big emotions and incorrect assumptions on the parts of nearly all the characters. Fittingly, it begins and ends with Deecie, who is full of naïve wonder and innocent longing on what turns out to be her last night alive. The final, shocking twist comes at the very end."