Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf
In the small Iowa farm town called Penny Gate, "people either die or go crazy".
Jack and Sarah Quinlan leave their home in Montana to travel to Jack's hometown of Penny Gate, a place he left many years ago, hoping never to return. But when his Uncle Hal calls to relay the news of Aunt Julia's life-threatening, nasty fall, Jack feels obliged to be near the woman who raised him after tragic events robbed him of his birth parents.
With great trepidation, he returns to his boyhood home where, as a fifteen-year-old boy, he found the bludgeoned body of his mother at the foot of the basement stairs. His wild and reckless behavior and reported frequent arguments with his parents, made him a prime suspect in the murder. That is, until Jack's father, John, disappeared after his wife's demise. Everyone surmised it must have been John who committed the crime. Even though he was exonerated, Jack still carries the scars and innuendos associated with the dark days of his childhood. Now he's come home again, and finds that beneath the cornflower blue skies of this small town, lie dangerous, hidden secrets..
Police begin to question if Julia's unfortunate mishap was really an accident after all. Circumstantial evidence seems to implicate Amy, Jacks's sister. She's a disheveled, pill-popping drinker who insists that she's innocent. And what about cousin Dean and his wife, Celia? How much does Jack really know about the relatives he hasn't seen in years?
Ultimately, the one person determined to unveil the truth is Sarah, Jack's wife. Twenty years of lies cause her to question the man she calls her husband. Puzzling emails, dusty boxes of discarded audio tapes, and a close encounter on a gloomy, deserted highway, are clues that bring her that much closer to exposing a cunning killer.
Gudenkauf's latest short, simple,suspense novel manages to keep the reader turning the pages even though it's fairly easy to unravel the mystery as the plot thickens. Tension builds with her descriptive passages of vast cornfields, endless dirt roads leading to nowhere, and spooky, whispering winds in the night, The characters are real, the writing is easy to follow, and most of all, it's a juicy read that asks the question..... how well do you really know your spouse?
In the small Iowa farm town called Penny Gate, "people either die or go crazy".
Jack and Sarah Quinlan leave their home in Montana to travel to Jack's hometown of Penny Gate, a place he left many years ago, hoping never to return. But when his Uncle Hal calls to relay the news of Aunt Julia's life-threatening, nasty fall, Jack feels obliged to be near the woman who raised him after tragic events robbed him of his birth parents.
With great trepidation, he returns to his boyhood home where, as a fifteen-year-old boy, he found the bludgeoned body of his mother at the foot of the basement stairs. His wild and reckless behavior and reported frequent arguments with his parents, made him a prime suspect in the murder. That is, until Jack's father, John, disappeared after his wife's demise. Everyone surmised it must have been John who committed the crime. Even though he was exonerated, Jack still carries the scars and innuendos associated with the dark days of his childhood. Now he's come home again, and finds that beneath the cornflower blue skies of this small town, lie dangerous, hidden secrets..
Police begin to question if Julia's unfortunate mishap was really an accident after all. Circumstantial evidence seems to implicate Amy, Jacks's sister. She's a disheveled, pill-popping drinker who insists that she's innocent. And what about cousin Dean and his wife, Celia? How much does Jack really know about the relatives he hasn't seen in years?
Ultimately, the one person determined to unveil the truth is Sarah, Jack's wife. Twenty years of lies cause her to question the man she calls her husband. Puzzling emails, dusty boxes of discarded audio tapes, and a close encounter on a gloomy, deserted highway, are clues that bring her that much closer to exposing a cunning killer.
Gudenkauf's latest short, simple,suspense novel manages to keep the reader turning the pages even though it's fairly easy to unravel the mystery as the plot thickens. Tension builds with her descriptive passages of vast cornfields, endless dirt roads leading to nowhere, and spooky, whispering winds in the night, The characters are real, the writing is easy to follow, and most of all, it's a juicy read that asks the question..... how well do you really know your spouse?
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