The Three Beths

September 17, 2018
A year after Beth Dunning disappeared from Lakehaven, Tex., in this gripping if flawed standalone from Thriller Award–winner Abbott (Blame), the primary suspect in the case remains Beth’s husband, who’s regularly harassed by the Lakehaven police chief and shunned by friends and neighbors. When Beth’s grown daughter, Mariah, catches a glimpse of Beth at a local mall, Mariah sets out to find her mother and absolve her father of blame. Aided by a former high school classmate and true-crime blogger, Mariah follows a tenuous link to a second woman with a similar first name: Bethany Curtis, the estranged wife of a tech millionaire, who went missing shortly before Beth did. In her painstaking pursuit of Bethany, Mariah stumbles into a family’s twisted web of blackmail, envy, and lies. The answer to the women’s disappearances seems to lie with a third “Beth,” the elusive Lizbeth, who vanished along with Bethany. Only the heavy-handed conclusion mars this high-voltage psychological thriller. Readers will be riveted until then. Five-city author tour. Agent: Peter Ginsberg, Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Listeners join Mariah in her quest to discover what has happened to her mother, who has disappeared in rural Texas. On finding out that her mother is one of three women of the same name to have vanished, Mariah takes her investigation into dangerous territory. Narrator Ellen Archer enlivens the story's characters, especially the confused Mariah and her father, who is suspected by many of murder. Archer's portrayals, especially her depiction of Ellen's father, help keep listeners guessing as to whether or not this is a case of murder. Her perfect timing allows the tension to build through the various twists in this psychological thriller. K.J.P. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine