Synopsis:
Behind its manicured lawns and guarded gates lies a neighborhood built on secrets.
Five years ago, three residents vanished. No bodies. No answers. Just rumors whispered around the country club.
When human remains surface on the golf course, old suspicions materialize and the women left behind find themselves back in the spotlight.
Andrea Kendal knows people think her brilliant surgeon husband had something to do with his first wife’s bloody disappearance.
Sara Batcher has spent years defending herself against accusations that she killed her husband, David.
Katie Morrow, the youngest trophy wife, lives in the shadows of suspicion cast by her husband’s ex-wife.
The investigation circles closer and the wives are bound together by fear, betrayal, and the ghosts of the missing. Appearances are everything in their neighborhood so they must each decide what they will sacrifice to protect their carefully constructed lives . . . before someone else decides to shatter them.
Review:
It all begins again with a bone. A human bone. It is discovered on the golf course that encompasses an upscale gated community in a tony Bay Area suburb.
The ensuing investigation causes several of the residents to fear that their long-hidden secrets could be revealed, thereby upending their carefully constructed lives. Over the course of the past five years, three residents have vanished without a clue as to their whereabouts or even why they disappeared.
In concise alternating chapters relating the perspectives of her characters, author A.R. Torre details their lives and emotional struggles.
David Batcher, a pharmaceutical salesperson with a wandering eye, simply didn’t come home one night. His wife, Sara, a successful entrepreneur who sold her stationery company, has remained the object of suspicion and gossip. Many people are convinced she is a murderer.
Heather Morrow signed divorce papers and simply walked away from her life with her sports agent husband, Mark. He has remarried. Much younger Katie loves him despite never really feeling satisfied in the relationship. She is convinced that Mark will never love her as much as he loved Heather, but she keeps trying to make him — or herself — happy. She refuses to tell him that she is pregnant until she feels confident that this pregnancy, unlike the last, won’t end in disappointment and sorrow.
Roxanne Kendal was the apparent victim of a brutal attack. Her car was found in a nearby park. Her purse and cell phone were in the vehicle, and there was a significant amount of blood in and on the car, as well as on the ground in the area near it. In the ensuing years, the search for her has not resulted in any leads, even though her cousin, a detective, relentlessly continues pursuing clues to her fate. Eric, her surgeon husband, has remarried. Andrea has obviously undergone a great deal of plastic surgery to achieve her carefully cultivated appearance. But she and Eric seem happy, even though he is still, like Sara, the focus of speculation and suspicion. He is raising her four-year-old son, Cameron, as his own and even gossipy neighbors acknowledge that he appears to be a devoted father. They have also welcomed Ryder, now seven months old, together.
Torre’s characters have managed to keep a variety of secrets from surfacing. She reveals the truth incrementally as the neighborhood residents hold their breath. In short order, the rest of the body is found submerged in the lake behind one of their homes. That resolves the question of what happened to one of the missing, but does not bring authorities much closer to understanding how the corpse ended up weighed down in twelve feet of water . . . or why, much less who disposed of the body there. Little evidence exists that can be submitted to forensic analysis that would provide answers.
As the story progresses, Torre shrewdly reveals that initial impressions about the characters are inaccurate. Some are revealed to be entirely unlikable and unsympathetic, and even despicable. She demonstrates that others deserve compassion as their actions were actually not just justified, but necessary for their very survival. Each character is fully developed, interesting, and motivated by self-preservation or, in some instances, to protect their loved ones for altruistic reasons.
The Missing Ones is an intricately plotted and skillfully presented mystery replete with many surprising twists, motives, and revelations that make a point about first impressions and being too quick to judge others. The evenly paced story culminates with a clever, surprising, and thoroughly satisfying conclusion.
