The Vanishing Year

July 11, 2016
Zoe Whittaker, the narrator of this convoluted novel of suspense from bestseller Moretti (While You Were Gone), used to be Hilary Lawlor, a student who dropped out of college in California and turned to drug dealing in 2009 after her adoptive mother’s death. Her testimony helped destroy a notorious sex-trafficking ring, but she fled across the country and changed her name before the perpetrators’ trial. By 2014, she’s married to Henry Whittaker, a controlling Manhattan businessman. After a college roommate recognizes her at a charity function, Zoe is nearly struck by a hit-and-run driver, and her apartment is ransacked. She concludes that one of the traffickers has found her and is trying to kill her, but perhaps she’s mistaken. Zoe’s blend of disloyalty to friends and naive trust in men with obviously sinister motives renders her unsympathetic at times. An implausible plot and chronological inconsistencies may also trouble some readers, but Moretti maintains a fast pace and creates a chillingly satisfying villain in suave, manipulative Henry. Agent: Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media.

Narrator Madeleine Maby's smoky voice is perfect for the unfolding of this complex psychological thriller. Zoe Whittaker, wife of Wall Street tycoon Henry Whittaker, has the perfect life--or does she? Maby's steady reading shifts subtly as secrets are revealed and Zoe's perfect life starts to unravel. The story is set in New York City, and Maby uses appropriate ethnic accents rather than regional ones to capture the characters. But her delivery of dialogue is slow, almost halting, in sharp contrast to her fluid reading of the narrative. The story is a mystery within a mystery involving both Zoe and Henry, each with motives, fears, and hidden pasts that threaten to destroy their lives. Maby's mix of fluid narrative and stiff dialogue challenges listeners to stick with this production to the very end. M.B.K. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine