Never Come Back

Despite working on a PhD in history, Elizabeth Hampton proves to be dangerously ignorant about her own—as the Dover, Ohio, grad student discovers after her widowed 69-year-old mother’s murder in this page-turner from Bell (The Hiding Place). Elizabeth barely has a chance to process the news before there’s a second shock: police suspect her brother, Ronnie, who has Down syndrome. It doesn’t add up to her, but neither does the subsequent break-in at her apartment, or the stranger she sees arguing with her uncle after the funeral, or those puzzling withdrawals from her mother’s savings account. As Elizabeth hurtles toward truths about her family she might prefer not to know, Bell does a good job exposing the seaminess underlying seemingly placid smalltown life. He’s less successful with some of his characters, who function primarily to facilitate the action. And the climactic revelations prove more sensational than satisfying. Agent: Laney Katz Becker, Lippincott, Massie, McQuilkin Literary Agents. (Oct.)