A Mother's Lie

February 24, 2020
A dysfunctional family drama plays out in this half-baked thriller from Zettel (The Other Sister). Single mother Beth Fraser, a vice president at a successful Chicago tech company, requires her spunky 15-year-old daughter, Dana, to send check-in texts every day at 4:30. One day after school, a woman approaches Dana and claims to be the grandmother she never met, and Beth’s fears are confirmed. Beth’s dangerous, con-artist parents, Todd and Jeannie Bowen, are in town and clearly want something from her. When Todd later meets with Beth and reveals that Jeannie has cancer, Dana softens from her initially suspicious attitude toward Jeannie but is subsequently exposed to some horrifying truths about her mother’s past. Beth will do anything to save her daughter from Todd and Jeannie, even if it involves pulling a con job on the violent Todd. Unfortunately, readers will struggle to understand the true intentions of the characters and won’t be able to root for any one of them. The action builds to a fairly gripping conclusion with a few loose ends, though excessive repeated dialogue (“I’m so sorry”) distracts. Zettel, best known for her SF, has done better. Agent: Lucienne Diver, Knight Agency.

March 1, 2020
Dana Fraser is stuck. The teen's extremely protective mother, Beth, keeps her own and her daughter's whereabouts secret from Beth's grifter parents, whose doings she tracks with the help of a private detective. But Dana is both curious and generous, and when her grandmother shows up and wants a relationship, she secretly goes along with the plan. Readers discover that Beth has good reason for keeping her parents far away, as their schemes and crimes threaten to destroy the lives of those around them unless Beth can use her own wiles against the sleazy couple. As she did in The Other Sister (2018), Zettel creates a realistic, infuriatingly dysfunctional family, with which many readers will be all too familiar. A highlight is the portrayal of Dana and Beth's relationship, with love and aggravation entwining to make a mother-daughter bond to remember. As well as recommending Zettel's other works, suggest that patrons track down The Riches, a scammers-under-the-microscope TV series (2007-08) starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)