Only Daughter

In 2003, 16-year-old Rebecca Winter disappeared from a Canberra suburb. In 2014, a disheveled young woman nabbed for stealing food in a Sydney supermarket stuns police by claiming to be Bec, setting in motion Australian author Snoekstra’s suspenseful if flawed debut. The mystery protagonist, who’s on the run, isn’t really Bec, but simply exploiting their uncanny resemblance. The author ratchets up the tension as the split narrative unreels along dual lines: the final week before Bec vanishes and the days after her doppelganger’s appearance. If continuing to stymie police investigation on the one hand and avoiding slips with Bec’s loved ones on the other weren’t tough enough, the imposter increasingly begins to suspect an even higher-stakes risk—falling victim to the same fate as the girl she’s impersonating. Though Snoekstra fleshes out her present-day protagonist far less than the phantom Bec, her smooth navigation through the twisty plot propels the reader along—until she finally hits the wall with a preposterous denouement. [em]Agent: Mackenzie Fraser-Bub, Fraser-Bub Literary. (Sept.) [/em]