Joy Delaney has gone missing, but her four adult children
and her husband take their sweet time about reporting her disappearance to the
authorities. She left them all a cryptic
text message, but then the housekeeper finds Joy’s phone under the bed in the
Delaney house. Joy’ husband, Stan, with
whom she ran a successful tennis academy, seems the most likely suspect,
especially since he is enigmatically unconcerned. Even more curious is the former presence of
Savannah, an injured waif who showed up on the Delaneys’ doorstep several
months ago and proceeded to insert herself into the household. The fact that two seemingly intelligent
adults would allow a complete stranger to move in and take over the cooking and
housekeeping is incomprehensible, but then many aspects of this book are
absurd. What’s not absurd is the number
of family secrets that trickle out one by one, adding intrigue to the mystery
of Joy’s whereabouts, as well as dispelling the myth of the Delaneys’ perfect
marriage. Three of the four children
have their own share of secrets, including, in some cases, the fact that their
marriages/relationships have recently gone bust. The plot sizzles at times, but this book
falls more squarely into the cozy mystery category than the thriller genre. The writing style is too simplistic, and the
characters are too even keel to rev up our heartrates and inspire us to become
truly worried about Joy. Everyone,
including the reader, seems to feel that Joy will turn up sooner or later. Also, the author is not the least bit subtle
about sharing odd tidbits that turn out to be incremental to the plot, such as
the ugly rug, the dog that eats paper, the cat that steals laundry, and, of
course, the hotshot tennis prospect that got away.
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