Missing Pieces

December 21, 2015
Edgar-finalist Gudenkauf (Little Mercies) exchanges her usual child-centered, topical stories for an old-fashioned melodrama in her hardcover debut. Physical therapist Jack Quinlan and his advice columnist wife, Sarah, are enjoying a comfortable life in Montana when they hear that Jack’s beloved aunt Julia, who took him in at 15 after his parents were killed in a car accident, has suffered a potentially fatal fall. Jack returns to his Iowa hometown for the first time in 20 years with Sarah by his side, but Sarah swings rapidly from supportive to suspicious when she discovers that he has lied about his past. Pestering the locals for information and the original case files, she learns that the circumstances of the deaths of Jack’s parents remain suspicious. The police classify Julia’s subsequent death as a homicide and target Jack and his troubled sister when investigating the linked crimes. Readers should be prepared for implausible plotting, an unsympathetic protagonist, and a clichéd denouement. Hopefully, Gudenkauf will return to form next time. Agent: Marianne Merola, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents.

May 1, 1995
Mazer (After the Rain; Taking Terri Mueller) demonstrates her continued mastery of YA themes and concerns with this densely packed story about a 14-year-old girl searching for the father who abandoned her in her infancy. Jessie admires her hardworking single mom and is devoted to her great-aunt Zis, but wishes her family were ``whole and perfect,'' made up of ``four sides, a square, not a triangle.'' The geometry of her relationships-her friendships, her place within her family-undergoes major reconstruction as Jessie begins questioning her father's disappearance and sets about locating him. Neither wistful nor self-pitying, Jessie, a spirited and witty narrator, is also trying to balance her attentions to her girlfriends, one of whom is jealous of the other, and to a boy, whom one of her friends also likes. Between snappy dialogue and tangy insights, Mazer thoughtfully explores issues of loyalty, compassion and forgiveness. Ages 12-up.