In Another Light

Phoebe Glassman, the protagonist of this gripping psychological thriller from Banner (The Poison Garden), still mourns her husband, Logan McClary, and her two-year-old daughter, Ava, three years after they died in a car accident. One day at the Bayport, Wash., funeral home where Phoebe works as a cosmetologist, the corpse of Pauline Steele, who’s nearly an exact double of Phoebe, arrives at the mortuary. On Pauline’s arm is a tattoo of a butterfly in flight, “the wings dissolving into many tinier butterflies taking off, becoming flower petals as they fly, smaller and smaller, on the cusp of life and death.” Phoebe has seen this exact image before—on Logan’s cell phone screen. In addition, Phoebe finds a photo of herself in Pauline’s purse. In her effort to discover what was going on between Logan and Pauline, Phoebe becomes convinced she’s the victim of an elaborate hoax and that a little girl she spots in Pauline’s neighborhood is Ava. The twisty plot builds to a satisfying resolution. Banner knows how to keep the reader guessing. Agent: Paige Wheeler, Creative Media Agency. (Oct.)