Three Days Missing

For Kat Jenkins, the first narrator of this gripping novel of suspense from Belle (The Marriage Lie), her eight-year-old son, Ethan, is the only good thing to come out of her marriage to her physically and emotionally abusive soon-to-be-ex-husband, Andrew Maddox. The morning after she sees Ethan off on an overnight class trip to the gold rush town of Dahlonega, Ga., she’s awoken by the police with the news that Ethan is missing. Meanwhile, Stef, the second narrator and the wife of Atlanta mayor Sam Huntington, gets a call from someone claiming to have taken her son Sammy, who is on the same trip and resembles Ethan. Sammy is fine, but he may hold clues to Ethan’s whereabouts, if Stef can pry them out of him. Belle does a masterful job of building tension as the search for Ethan gains steam toward the somewhat predictable conclusion, and she credibly highlights the economic and social divide between the upscale Huntingtons and Kat, who struggles at vindictive Andrew’s mercy. Readers will be glad to get to know these two very different, yet equally strong women. Agent: Nikki Terpilowski, Holloway Literary. (June)